I sank my battered frame into the nearest
chair. "This--this newspaper work--it must cease." He
dismissed it with a wave of the hand.
"Certainly," I said, with elaborate sarcasm. "How
should you advise me to earn my living in the future?
In the stories they paint dinner cards, don't
they? or bake angel cakes?"
"Are you then never serious?" asked Von Gerhard, in
disapproval.
"Never," said I. "An old, worn-out, worked-out
newspaper reporter, with a husband in the mad-house,
can't afford to be serious for a minute, because if she
were she'd go mad, too, with the hopelessness of it all."
And I buried my face in my hands.
The room was very still for a moment. Then the great
Von Gerhard came over, and took my hands gently from my
face. "I--I do beg your pardon," he said. He looked
strangely boyish and uncomfortable as he said it. "I was
thinking only of your good. We do that, sometimes,
forgetting that circumstances may make our wishes
impossible of execution. So. You will forgive me?"
"Forgive you? Yes,indeed," I assured him. And we shook
hands, gravely. "But that doesn't help matters much,
after all, does it?"
"Yes, it helps. For now we understand one another,
is it not so? You say you can only write for a living.
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