"So much the worse for you, then!"
"There will be mornings when you won't think it so much fun. It rains and snows in Indiana sometimes."
He still resented the idea of her sacrifice, as he called it, in the cause of education. They were now so well acquainted that they were not always careful to be polite in their talk; but he had an uneasy feeling that she didn't wholly approve of him. All summer, when they had discussed politics, she had avoided touching upon his personal interests and activities. His alliance with Bassett, emphasized in the state convention, was a subject she clearly avoided. This morning, as he kept time to her quick step, he craved her interest and sympathy. Her plain gray suit and simple cloth hat could not disguise her charm or grace. It seemed to him that she was putting herself a little further away from him, that she was approaching the business of life with a determination, a spirit, a zest, that dwarfed to insignificance his own preoccupation with far less important matters. She turned to glance back at a group of children they had passed audibly speculating as to the character of teacher the day held in store for them.
"Don't you think they're worth working for?" Sylvia asked.
Dan shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose more lives are ground up in the school-teaching machine than in any other way. Go on! The girl who taught me my alphabet in the little red school-house in Harrison County earned her salary, I can tell you. She was seventeen and wore a pink dress."
"I'm sorry you don't approve of me or my clothes. Now Allen approves of me: I like Allen."
"His approval is important, I dare say."
"Yes, very. It's nice to be approved of. It helps some."
"And I suppose there ought to be a certain reciprocity in approval and disapproval?"