She bent towards him.
Perhaps she too felt that the moment was one not likely to be let go.
"Norris," she said, "don't listen to Deane or any of them. Strike your
blow. Your paper will become famous. Trust to that for your reward if
you will. If not a child, you could use your knowledge of what will
happen on the morning of its appearance to make a fortune. Do you know I
have grown to hate those men? If my father goes too, I do not care. I
owe him very little, and I have had enough of luxury. There is more to
be got out of a cottage in Italy or Switzerland, or even in England
here, than a mansion in our country. I wish I could convert you."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"It is different with us," he said. "A man must be where life is. I do
not think that I could ever be content with idleness."
"And yet when it comes," she reminded him, "you love it. Who was it who
spent a year in some little village near the Carpathians, and had almost
to be dragged back to civilization? Norris, sometimes I think that you
are a _poseur_."
He looked down into the street. A carriage had driven
up, and was waiting at the door below.
"We must go down," he said.
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