She recurred to something that had been said on Class Day about his taking up the law immediately, or going abroad first for a year.
“Oh, I've abandoned Europe altogether for the present,” he said laughing. “And I don't know but I may go back on the law too.”
“Indeed! Then you are going to be an artist?”
“Oh no; not so bad as that. It isn't settled yet, and I'm off here to think it over a while before the law school opens in September. My father wants me to go into his business and turn my powers to account in designing wall-papers.”
“Oh, how very interesting!” At the same time Mrs. Pasmer ran over the whole field of her acquaintance without finding another wall-paper maker in it. But she remembered what Mrs. Saintsbury had said: it was manufacturing. This reminded her to ask if he had seen the Saintsburys lately, and he said, No; he believed they were still in Cambridge, though.
“And we shall actually see a young man,” she said finally, “in the act of deciding his own destiny!”
He laughed for pleasure in her persiflage. “Yes; only don't give me away. Nobody else knows it.”
“Oh no, indeed. Too much flattered, Mr. Mavering. Shall you let me know when you've decided? I shall be dying to know, and I shall be too high-minded to ask.”
It was not then too late to adapt 'Pinafore' to any exigency of life, and Mavering said, “You will learn from the expression of my eyes.”