" Baird gave him a friendly look.
"All right. Let's talk about her."
"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking slowly.
"She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't look to me as
strong as she was."
"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people fool doctors
now and then--and she seems to have taken a fresh start. I feel she may go
on for years." Roger was silent a moment, chagrined and disappointed.
"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.
"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down there at the
school. She tells me you've been there yourself."
"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going. I'm trying
not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis. Baird turned and
frankly smiled at him.
"Then you have probably seen," he replied, "that to keep any hold at all on
her, you must make up your mind as I have done that, strength or no
strength, this job of hers is going to be a life career. When a woman who
has held a job without a break for eleven years can feel such a flame of
enthusiasm, you can be pretty sure, I think, it is the deepest part of her.
At least I feel that way," he said. "And I believe the only way to keep
near her--for the present, anyhow--is to help her in her work."
When Baird had gone, Roger found himself angry.
"I'm not in the habit, young man," he thought, "of throwing my daughter at
gentlemen's heads.
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