“So I’ve heard,” said John, his head in the clouds.  “It must be dull business.”

Maria Dolores dimly smiled.  “Do you do no work?” she asked.

“I’ve never had time,” said John.  “I’ve been too busy enjoying life.”

“Oh,” said Maria Dolores, with the intonation of reproach.

“Yes,” said he, “enjoying the Humour, the Romance, the Beauty of it,—­and combine the three together, make a chord of ’em, you get the Divinity.  Or, to take a lower plane, the world’s a stage, and life’s the drama.  I could never leave off watching and listening long enough to do any work.”

“But do you not wish to play a part in the drama, to be one of the actors?” asked his gentle homilist.  “Have you no ambition?”

“Not an atom,” he easily confessed.  “The part of spectator seems to me by far the pleasantest.  To sit in the stalls and watch the incredible jumble-show, the reason-defying topsy-turvydom of it, the gorgeous, squalid, tearful, and mirthful pageantry, the reckless inconsequences, the flagrant impossibilities; to watch the Devil ramping up and down like a hungry lion, and to hear the young-eyed cherubim choiring from the skies:  what better entertainment could the heart of man desire?”

“But are we here merely to be entertained?” she sweetly preached, while John’s blue eyes somewhat mischievously laughed, and he felt it hard that he couldn’t stop her rose-red mouth with kisses.  “Aren’t we here to be, as the old-fashioned phrase goes, of use in the world?  Besides, now that you are in love, surely you will never sit down weakly, and say, ’I am too poor to marry,’ and so give up your love,—­like your friend Winthorpe indeed, but for ignoble instead of noble motives.  Surely you will set to work with determination, and earn money, and make it possible to marry.  Or else your love must be a very poor affair.”  And her adorable little hands, as they lay ("like white lilies,” thought John) upon the pale-green fabric of her gown, unclasped themselves, opened wide for an instant, showing the faint pink of their palms, then lightly again interlaced their fingers.

He laughed.  “You are delicious,” he said to her fervently, in silence.  “My love is all right,” he said aloud.  “I love her as much as it is humanly possible to love.  I love her with passion, with tenderness; with worship, with longing; I love her with wonder; I love her with sighs, with laughter.  I love her with all I have and with all I am.  And I owe one to Winthorpe for having unwittingly opened my eyes to my condition.  But earning money?  I’ve a notion it’s difficult.  What could I do?”

“Have you no profession?” she asked.

“Not the ghost of one,” said he, with nonchalance.

“But is there no profession that appeals to you—­for which you feel that you might have a taste?” Her dark eyes were very earnest.