He seemed totally unconscious of his clothes, however.
"What do you do with yourself, Willy?" she asked. "I mean when you
are free?"
"Read and study. I want to take up metallurgy pretty soon. There's
a night course at the college."
"We use metallurgists in the mill. When you are ready I know father
would be glad to have you."
He flushed at that.
"Thanks," he said. "I'd rather get in, wherever I go, by what I
know, and not who I know."
She felt considerably snubbed, but she knew his curious pride. After
a time, while he threw a stick into the park lake and Jinx retrieved
it, he said:
"What do you do with yourself these days, Lily?"
"Nothing. I've forgotten how to work, I'm afraid. And I'm not very
happy, Willy. I ought to be, but I'm just--not."
"You've learned what it is to be useful," he observed gravely, "and
now it hardly seems worth while just to live, and nothing else. Is
that it?"
"I suppose."
"Isn't there anything you can do?"
"They won't let me work, and I hate to study."
There was a silence. Willy Cameron sat on the bench, bent and
staring ahead. Jinx brought the stick, and, receiving no attention,
insinuated a dripping body between his knees.
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