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n Cleric was offered an instructorship at Harvard College, and accepted it. He suggested that I should follow him in the fall, and complete my course at Harvard. He had found out about Lena--not from me--and he talked to me seriously. 'You won't do anything here now. You should either quit school and go to work, or change your college and begin again in earnest. You won't recover yourself while you are playing about with this handsome Norwegian. Yes, I've seen her with you at the theatre. She's very pretty, and perfectly irresponsible, I should judge.' Cleric wrote my grandfather that he would like to take me East with him. To my astonishment, grandfather replied that I might go if I wished. I was both glad and sorry on the day when the letter came. I stayed in my room all evening and thought things over. I even tried to persuade myself that I was standing in Lena's way--it is so necessary to be a little noble!--and that if she had not me to play with, she would probably marry and secure her future. The next evening I went to call on Lena. I found her propped up on the couch in her bay-window, with her foot in a big slipper. An awkward little Russian girl whom she had taken into her work-room had dropped a flat-iron on Lena's toe. On the table beside her there was a basket of early summer flowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He always managed to know what went on in Lena's apartment. Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients, when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket. 'This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena.' 'Oh, he has--often!' she murmured. 'What! After you've refused him?' 'He doesn't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they're in love with somebody.' 'The colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some old fellow; not even a rich one.' Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me in surprise. 'Why, I'm not going to marry anybody. Didn't you know that?' 'Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Every handsome girl like you marries, of course.' She shook her head. 'Not me.' 'But why not? What makes you say that?' I persisted. Lena laughed. 'Well, it's mainly because I don't want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky ol
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