“There are two things,” he answered; “a small choice.”
“The first and the simplest,” he went on in the tone of voice which she had never quite fathomed--half cynical, half amused--“is to pretend that last night--never was.”
“We will not do that,” she replied softly; “we will take the other alternative, whatever it is.”
She glanced up half shyly beneath her lashes, and he felt that no difficulty could affright him.
“The other is generally supposed to be very difficult,” he said. “It means--waiting.”
“Oh,” she answered cheerfully, “there is no hurry. I do not want to be married yet.”
“Waiting perhaps for years,” he added--and he saw her face drop.
“Because I am dependent on my father for everything. We could not marry without his consent.”
A peculiar, hard look crept into her eyes, and in some subtle way it made her look older. After a little pause she said:
“But we can surely get that--between us?”
She looked up--past him--out of the window. All the youthfulness seemed to have left her face, but he did not appear to see that.
“Well, I can work. I suppose I must be good for something--a bountiful Providence must surely have seen to that. The difficulty is to find out what it intends me for. We are not called in the night nowadays to a special mission--we have to find it out for ourselves.”
“Do you know what I should like you to be?” she said, with a bright smile and one of those sudden descents into shallowness which he appeared to like.
“Then I shall be a politician,” he answered, with loverlike promptness.
“That would be very nice,” she said; and the castles she at once began to build were not entirely aerial in their structure.
This was not a new idea. They had talked of politics before as a possible career for himself. They had moved in a circle where politics and politicians held a first place--a circle removed above the glamour of art, and wherein Bohemianism was not reckoned an attraction. She knew that behind his listlessness of manner he possessed a certain steady energy, perfect self-command, and that combination of self-confidence and indifference which usually attains success in the world. She was ambitious not only for herself but for him, and she was shrewd enough to know that the only safe outlet for a woman's ambition is the channel of a husband's career.