"It isn't a great matter," she replied. "I don't want you to do anything that you don't feel like doing. Only," she sighed, "there's so much opposition to married women's teaching, and we must live somehow."
"I'll do it to-morrow," Sommers replied quickly, stung by the unintentional implication of the speech.
They walked to their favorite haunt on the lake shore, beneath the crumbling walls of the little convent. During these hot September days this spot had become the brightest place in their lives. They had come there to find themselves, to avoid the world. They had talked and planned, had been silent, had loved, and had rested. Today they watched the fiery sun sinking in its bed of shining dust, and did not speak. Alves was unusually weary, and he was sad over the decision he had just made, weakly, it seemed to him. A good deal of the importance of his revolt against commercial medicine disappeared. Lindsay tried oily, obsequious means of attracting attention. He was to hang his sign from a corner store. Some dim idea of the terrible spectre that haunts the days and nights of those without capital or position confronted him. If he had never been rich, he had always the means to give him time to look about, to select from a number of opportunities. If he could manage to wait, even six months, some hospital place might turn up. His old associates at Philadelphia would have him in mind. He did not dare to write them of his necessity; even his friends would be suspicious of his failure to gain a foothold in this hospitable, liberal metropolis.
He rose at last to escape these gloomy thoughts. Alves followed him without a word. He did not offer her his arm, as he was wont to do when they walked out here beyond the paths where people came. She respected his mood, and falling a step behind, followed the winding road that led around the ruined Court of Honor to the esplanade. As they gained the road by a little footpath in the sandy bank, a victoria approached them. The young woman who occupied it glanced hastily at Sommers and half bowed, but he had turned back to give Alves his hand. The carriage drove on past them, then stopped.
"That lady wishes to speak to you," Alves said.
"I think not," Sommers replied quickly, turning in the opposite direction. As they walked away the carriage started, and when Alves looked around it had already passed over the rough wooden bridge that crossed the lagoon.
"Was it some one you knew?" she asked indifferently.
"It was Miss Hitchcock," Sommers replied shortly. He told her something about the Hitchcocks. "She was the first woman I knew in Chicago," he concluded musingly. Alves looked at him with troubled eyes, and then was silent. Territories unknown in her experience were beginning to reveal themselves in the world of this man.
CHAPTER III
The next day Sommers applied at the drug store for permission to hang his sign beneath the others. The question was referred to Jelly, who seemed to be the silent partner in the business, and in a few days consent was given. The little iron sign with gilt letters shone with startling freshness beneath the larger ones above. But no immediate results were visible. Sommers dropped into the store as nonchalantly as he could almost daily, but there were no calls for him. He met Jelly, who looked him over coldly, while he lopped over the glass show-case and smoked a bad cigar. Sommers thought he detected a malicious grin on the clerk's face when Jelly questioned him one day about his practice. The successful physician seemed to sum him up in a final speech.