“She's a good girl,” he said. “But she's entitled to more than you can give her, the way things are.”
“That is presupposing that she cares for me. I haven't an idea that she does. That she may, in time—Then, that's the reason for this Johns Hopkins thing, is it?”
“That's the reason,” David said stoutly. “She would wait for you. She's that sort. I've known her all her life. She's as steady as a rock. But she's been brought up to have a lot of things. Walter Wheeler is well off. You do as I want you to; pack your things and go to Baltimore. Bring Reynolds down here to look after the work until I'm around again.”
But Dick evaded the direct issue thus opened and followed another line of thought.
“Of course you understand,” he observed, after a renewal of his restless pacing, “that I've got to tell her my situation first. I don't need to tell you that I funk doing it, but it's got to be done.”
“Don't be a fool,” David said querulously. “You'll set a lot of women cackling, and what they don't know they'll invent. I know 'em.”
“Only herself and her family.”
“Why?”
“Because they have a right to know it.”
But when he saw David formulating a further protest he dropped the subject.