“Will you let me travel with you, John? I've thought that I could draw while you write. Maybe I could even help you with your books. It would be wonderful—exploring strange places. I'd like to go down through Yunnan, and over the border into Siam and Assam and the Burmah country. I've been reading about it, sitting in the hospital at night.”
“There would be privation—and dangers.”
“I don't care.”
“You wouldn't be afraid?”
“Not with you. And if—if anything happened to you, I'd want to go, too.... Of course, there'd be other problems coming up. Don't think I'm altogether impractical, dear.”
“What are you thinking of?”
She hesitated. “Children, John. I know we shan't either of us be satisfied to live just for our happiness in each other. I couldn't help thinking about that, watching you here, during the siege.”
“No, we shan't.”
“And with your work what it is—what it's got to be there's our first problem.”
“We'll have to take life as it comes.”