Ere that day was done something was destined to happen which would make this particular problem many times more perplexing. Since she knew nothing of this, Lucile went serenely on selling books.
“Let me tell you something,” said Rennie, the veteran book-seller, who had apparently made an excuse for going to lunch with Lucile that day. “You’re letting this work get on your nerves. Look at those puckers between your eyes. It’s no use. You mustn’t let it. You’ll go to pieces and it’s not worth it. You’ve got your life to live. You—”
“But Rennie—”
Rennie held up a finger for silence. “You’re young; haven’t learned the gospel of repose. You, perhaps, think of repose as the curling of one’s self up in a soft-cushioned chair. That’s not repose; it’s stagnation. Did you ever see a tiny bird balancing himself on a twig over a rushing waterfall and singing his little heart away? That’s repose. You can have poise and repose in the midst of the crowding throng. The bird, only half conscious of the rushing water beneath him, sings the more sweetly because of it. We, too, may have our service sweetened by the very rush of things if we will.
“And it is service! You believe that, don’t you?”
There was a new light in the veteran saleslady’s eyes. Lucile, as she looked at her frail body, thought to herself: “She’s more spirit than body. She’s given half herself away in service.”
“Why yes,” she replied slowly, “I suppose selling juvenile books is a service in a way.”
“You suppose!” Rennie gripped her arm until it hurt. “Don’t you know it is? It may be made a great, a wonderful service. There are books and books. You have read many of them. You know them. You are young. You have read. Some you have loved, some despised. Which do you sell? Which?”
“Why, the ones I love, of course.”
“That’s just it. Being endowed by nature with taste, good taste, and having had that taste improved by education, you are able to choose the best.