"Tough," I suggested cheerfully. "No--hungry," Eleanore said. "You're always reaching out for things--you jump right into them so hard. And even when they hurt you--and you're hurt quite easily--you hang on and won't let go. Look at the way you've gone at the harbor right from the start. And you're doing it still--you've done it all summer until it has made you look like a ghost. And I guess you'll keep on all your life. There are harbors everywhere, you know--in a way the whole world is a harbor--and unless you change a lot you're going to be hurt a good deal." "My mother agreed with you," I said. "She wanted me to be a professor in a quiet college town." "Please stop twinkling your eyes," Eleanore commanded. "Your mother knew you very well. You might have done that--and settled down--with some nice quiet college girl--if you had done it years ago. As it is, of course you're hopeless." "I am not hopeless," I declared indignantly. "If I can only get what I want I'll be the happiest fellow alive!" "I know," she answered thoughtfully. "You told me that before. You want fiction, don't you." "Yes, fiction," I said wrathfully. "I want that more than anything else. But I don't want any quiet kind, and I don't want any quiet town," I went on, leaning forward intensely. "I want the harbor and the city--I want it thick and heavy, and just as fast as it will come. I want all the life there is in the world--all the beauty--all the happiness! And I can't wait--I want it soon!" From under the brim of her soft white hat her blue-gray eyes were fixed intently on the shore, which was miles away. But watching her I saw she knew that all the time I was saying desperately, "I want you." I knew she did not want me to say anything like that out loud, and I felt myself that I had no right--not until I had done so much more in my writing. But I kept circling around it. Half the time on purpose and as often quite unconsciously, in all we talked about those days I kept eagerly filling in the picture of the life we two might lead. When in one of her cool hostile moods--moods which came over her suddenly--she told me almost jealously how happy she'd been with her father abroad and how together they had planned to go to India, China, Japan in the years to come, I brought her back to my subject by saying: "I mean to travel a lot myself." "That's one advantage I have as a writer," I continued earnestly. "I'll never be tied down to one place. All my life--whenever I choose--I can pick up my work and go anywhere." She looked straight back into my eyes. "I wish my father could," she said. "Look here," I said indignantly. "Your father has been four months abroad while I have been in Brooklyn! Isn't it only fair and square to let _me_ travel this afternoon?" She looked at me reluctantly. "Yes," she agreed. "I suppose it is."