“But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the country.  I am sure that would not do.”

Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he sighed, and was silent.

Kitty answered the sigh.  “No use in bothering about me, Jack.  You ought to be very glad I have been so honest.  Some girls would have ’risked you, and in a week, you’d have been just as miserable!”

“You don’t dislike me, Kitty?”

“Not at all.  I think you are first-rate.”

“It is my profession, then?”

“Exactly.”

“Now, what has it ever done to offend you?”

“Nothing yet, and I don’t mean it ever shall.  You see, I know Will Hutton’s wife:  and what that woman endures!  Its just dreadful.”

“Now, Kitty!”

“It is Jack.  Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to jot down what he calls ‘an idea,’ is always pointing out ’splendid passages’ to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces.  Oh, it is just dreadful!”

“But she thoroughly enjoys it.”

“Yes, that is such a shame.  Will has quite spoiled her.  Lucy used to be real nice, a jolly, stylish girl.  Before she was married she was splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book.”

“Kitty, I’d promise upon my honor—­at the altar, if you like—­never to bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my profession.”

“No, no, sir!  Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother, perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual ‘friend.’  What is the use of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the manger?  I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were mine, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was.”

Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed.  He squeezed Kitty’s hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.

“I’ll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am quite sure I could make plenty of money for you.”

“Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in calicos for love, people say she’s mercenary.  Well, then, I am mercenary.  I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I’m fond of having things regular; it’s a habit of mine to like them all the time.  Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms of poverty.  Artists are just the same.  I have tried poverty occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us they are.”

“Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?”

“No sarcasm, Jack.  I shall marry the first good honest fellow that loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every summer to see views.”