"I am not offended," she answered; "but if things are too much for me I suppose I must bear it as others have done; after all, the soldier who falls on the battle-field is more to be envied than if he dies in his native village."
"I should think you have done a good deal of reading; that sounds like it, you know," at which they laughed, like the boy and girl they were. "I wish you'd go back," he half entreated.
"But I won't," she said, obstinately.
"Then let me wire to the Lakemans and ask if they can have you?"
"I wouldn't for the world."
"You are very positive. And you mean to say that you are bent on this stage business?"
"Yes; I'm bent on it," and she told him of her visit to Mr. Farley in the morning and of the two rehearsals. He got up and walked about. He was worried, of course—he felt that he ought to be worried—but he was so happy at hearing that there was nothing between her and Mr. Garratt that he found it difficult to be serious. "I wish I could make you see," he said, "that you are only taking the bread out of other people's mouths. When I get into the House I shall make bread-snatching a penal offence, and send you to prison."
"Bread-snatching! What do you mean?"
"Why, you see lots of women have to work for food and clothes and a roof. Some try to act, some to dressmake, or write novels, or teach infants—that's all right, of course. They've got to do it to get through the world. If you have got a great deal of talent for acting, even though you are not obliged to do it, it is all right to go on the stage, and, of course, if you have genius you have no business to keep it from the world. But there are a whole heap of women who want to do things for the sake of getting a little more money than they really need, or because they like being talked about, or for some other reason that doesn't hold water, and they do it under easy conditions and snatch the chances from the women who have got to do it for their bread-and-butter. I think they are an immoral lot myself."
"But, Mr. Carringford—"