“Why?” he asked. “Just to keep from being disinherited? That wouldn’t be so awful.” 

 “Wouldn’t it be awful to you?” she asked, turning her bright eyes upon him. “What could be worse?” 

 “Things,” he said very vaguely. 

 Then she touched up the cob a little; and, after a minute or two, as she said nothing, he continued: 

 “I almost fancy quitting college and going to work. I was thinking about it last night.” 

 She touched up the cob a little more, and remained silent. 

 Finally he said: 

 “What would you think of my doing that?” 

 “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “You see, I’m a great philosopher. I never fret or worry, because I regard it as useless; similarly, I never rebel at the way fate shapes my life—I regard that as something past helping. I believe in predestination; do you?” 

 She turned and looked at him so seriously—so unlike her riante self—that he felt startled, and did not know what to say for a minute. 

 Then: 

 “I don’t know,” he said slowly; “I don’t know that I dare to. It rather startles me to think that maybe all of our future is laid out now.” 

 “It doesn’t startle me,” she said. “It seems to me the natural plan of the universe. I believe that everything that crosses our path—down to the tiniest gnat—comes there in the fulfillment of a purpose.” 

 “I’m sure that all the mosquitoes that ever crossed my path came there in the fulfillment of a purpose,” Jack interrupted. “I never doubted that.” 

 She smiled a little. 

 “It’s the same with people,” she went on. 

“Do not let us play any longer,’ she said. ‘Let us be in earnest.’”

 “Only less painful,” he interrupted again. 

 Prev. P 38/184 next