"I do not dance."
"Well, you ride, and you walk, and you sing, and tell stories, and manage at least to waste lots of time when you should be working."
"You have a great deal of impatience with anyone who is not a worker, haven't you?"
"Yes," she said, looking up at him. "I grow very impatient myself often from the same cause."
"You always seem to me to be very busy," he answered half-vexedly; "too busy. You take on yourself responsibilities in all directions that do not belong to you; and you have such a way of doing as you please that no one about the place seems to realize how much of a general manager you are here, or how likely you are to overburden yourself."
"Nonsense!"
She spoke brusquely, but could not but feel the kindness in the penetration that had given her appreciation where the others, through habit, had grown to take her accomplishments as a matter of course. In the beginning they had taken them as a joke.
"Pardon me," he said finally. "I do not mean to be rude, but do you mind telling me if work is a necessity to you?"
"Certainly not. I have none of that sort of pride to contend with, I hope, and I have a little money—not much, but enough to live on; so, you see, I am provided for in a way."
"Then why do you always seem to be skirmishing around for work?" he asked, in a sort of impatience. "Women should be home-makers, not—"