He had come to her hoping for a rest
and the joy of her society. Just to watch her dainty grace as she moved
about a room, handling the tea things and giving him a delicate sandwich
or a crisp cake, filled him with joy and soothed his troubled spirit; it
was so like his ideal of what a woman should be.
But Gila was not handing out tea that afternoon. She had other fish to
fry, and she went at her business with a determination that very soon
showed him there was no rest to be had there.
Very prettily, but quite efficiently, she bored him for information
about his plans. Had he no plans whatever about what he was going to do
as soon as he had finished college? Of course she knew he had money of
his own (he had never told her how much, and there hadn't really been
any way of asking a man like Courtland when he didn't choose to tell a
thing like that), but nowadays that was nothing. Even rich men all did
_something_. One wasn't anything unless one was in something big! Hadn't
he ever had any offers at all? It was queer, such a brilliant man as he
was. She knew lots of young fellows who had no end of chances to get
into big things as soon as they were done with their education. Didn't
his father know of something, or have something in mind for him? Hadn't
he ever been approached?
Goaded at last by her delicate but determined insinuations, Courtland
told her. Yes, he had had offers; one in particular that was a fine
thing from a worldly point of view, but he didn't intend to take it.
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