You are going
away for your health, just three summer months. I have been far
more careful of appearances than you imagine, but you give me
credit for so little. I will find the money you need, until you
have written another book. I promise; I undertake it. Then I will
find another home for us, of the proper kind. You shall have no
trouble. You shall give yourself entirely to intellectual things.
But Mr Carter must be told at once, before he can spread a
report. If he has spoken, he must contradict what he has said.'
'But you amaze me, Amy. Do you mean to say that you look upon it
as a veritable disgrace, my taking this clerkship?'
'I do. I can't help my nature. I am ashamed through and through
that you should sink to this.'
'But everyone knows that I was a clerk once!'
'Very few people know it. And then that isn't the same thing. It
doesn't matter what one has been in the past. Especially a
literary man; everyone expects to hear that he was once poor. But
to fall from the position you now have, and to take weekly wages
--you surely can't know how people of my world regard that.
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