"Don't you like newspaper work?" she asked with a shade of disappointment in her tone.
"I did, but I like it less every day. It's a hard and unsatisfactory life, and it has no promise in it. A man very soon reaches its highest point, and then he must be content to stay there. It's the easiest thing for a young fellow to get a start in, if he's bright; I suppose I'm making more money than any of the young lawyers in Chicago; but because it is so easy is the very reason why it is hardly worth while. Things that are easily won are not worth striving for."
"Yes, as soon as I can. As soon as I can, I'm going to get into the law. When Weston first began urging me to keep up my studies, and when finally he made me go to the night law school, I consented chiefly because I had always felt the chagrin of defeat in having been compelled to give it up; lately, I've begun to see things differently, and I've determined to carry out my first intention and get into the law somehow. Of course, it's going to be hard. And one has to have a pull there as everywhere else in these days."
Marley was silent for a moment and, Lavinia thought, a little depressed. She watched him sympathetically, and yet she was a little troubled by a sense of detachment. She felt that Weston was now more closely associated with Marley's struggle than she, and she was disturbed, too, by the disappointment of finding that his struggles were not at all ended.
"Weston says," Marley went on presently, "that newspaper work is a good stepping-stone, and by it I may be able to arrange for some place in the law which will give me the start I want."
"I thought you liked your work," Lavinia said; "I thought you were happy in it."
Marley detected her regret, and was on the point of speaking, when Lavinia went on:
"I don't see why you can't go into literature as well as Mr. Weston."
"The reason is that I haven't his talent," he said
"I don't see why," Lavinia argued with some resentment of his humility. "You haven't enough confidence in your own powers; you let Mr. Weston dominate you too much."
"Now, dearest," he pleaded, "you mustn't do Jim that injustice. He doesn't dominate me; but he is so much wiser than I, he knows so much more. You will understand when you meet him."