Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/365

 over. He 'll make allowances for me. He always has. But I m afraid he won t for you."

"Leave that to him and me. I take it you want me to see him?" Fred sat down again and began absently to trace the carpet pattern with his cane. "At the worst," he spoke wanderingly, "I thought you 'd perhaps let me go in on the business end of it and invest along with you. You 'd put in your talent and ambition and hard work, and I 'd put in the money and—well, nobody 's good wishes are to be scorned, not even mine. Then, when the thing panned out big, we could share together. Your doctor friend has n't cared half so much about your future as I have."

"He 's cared a good deal. He does n't know as much about such things as you do. Of course you 've been a great deal more help to me than any one else ever has," Thea said quietly. The black clock on the mantel began to strike. She listened to the five strokes and then said, "I 'd have liked your helping me eight months ago. But now, you 'd simply be keeping me."

"You were n't ready for it eight months ago." Fred leaned back at last in his chair. "You simply were n't ready for it. You were too tired. You were too timid. Your whole tone was too low. You could n't rise from a chair like that,"—she had started up apprehensively and gone toward the window.—"You were fumbling and awkward. Since then you 've come into your personality. You were always locking horns with it before. You were a sullen little drudge eight months ago, afraid of being caught at either looking or moving like yourself. Nobody could tell anything about you. A voice is not an instrument that 's found ready-made. A voice is personality. It can be as big as a circus and as common as dirt.—There 's good money in that kind, too, but I don't happen to be interested in them.—Nobody could tell much about what you might be able to do, last winter. I divined more than anybody else."