Prosper’s eyebrows lifted a trifle.
“I’d—sure clear out the whole of this”—and she swept a ruthless hand.
Again Prosper made delighted use of that upward stretching of his arms. He laughed. “And you’d clear me out, too, wouldn’t you?—if you had to live here.”
“Oh, no,” said Joan. She paused and fastened her enormous, grave look upon him. “I’d like right soon now to begin to work for you.”
Again Prosper laughed. “Why,” said he, “you don’t know the first thing about woman’s work, Joan. What could you do?”
Joan straightened wrathfully. “I sure do know. Sure I do. I can cook fine. I can make a room clean. I can launder—”
“Oh, pooh! The Chinaman does all that as well—no, better than you ever could do it. That’s not woman’s work.”
Joan saw all the business of femininity swept off the earth. Profound astonishment, incredulity, and alarm possessed her mind and so her face. Truly, thought Prosper, it was like talking to a grave, trustful, and most impressionable child, the way she sat there, rather on the edge of her chair, her hands folded, letting everything he said disturb and astonish the whole pool of her thought.
“But, Mr. Gael, sweepin’, washin’, cookin’,—ain’t all that a woman’s work?”
“Men can do it so much better,” said Prosper, blowing forth a cloud of blue cigarette smoke and brushing it impatiently aside so that he could smile at her evident offense and perplexity.