The only thing
is the salary. You can't live on air, you know, and with the poor
attendances he gets now, I don't see how he can afford to pay much."
"I would work for very little," Shiel said. "I should be awfully sorry
to give up now. I wonder if you would miss me at all?"
"Of course I should!" Gladys retorted. "You have behaved admirably,
and I am most grateful to you."
"You needn't be grateful to me. I have never enjoyed anything half so
much as I have trying to help you. I am poor, penniless in fact, since
my uncle left me nothing, but supposing--supposing I were to get some
lucrative post, do you think--do you think there would ever be any
possibility of--"
"Of what?"
"Of your caring for me! I am terribly in love with you."
"I fear I must have given you encouragement," Gladys said. "I'm
awfully sorry. You see I never thought of this, and I don't know what
to say to you."
"Won't you give me a chance, just a chance?"
"But my father would never hear of it. Unfortunately he seems to be
prejudiced against you. Won't you wait a while, and then, if you are
still in the same mind, speak to me again in--say--a year. By that
time you will, no doubt, have made some sort of a position for
yourself."
"And in the meanwhile you will get engaged to some one else," Shiel
exclaimed.
"I don't think I shall," Gladys said. "Of course, I meet crowds of
men, but you see I am not the marrying sort.
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