"
"Preferred his old Bohemian ways, eh? You can't change those fellows,
Conny. They can't get over the fascinations of vagabondage. Sorry your
lady-patroness scheme didn't work. Pity you couldn't have promoted him
in the line of his profession, as the Grand Duchess of Girolstein did
Fritz."
"For Heaven's sake, Jack, go to Clementina! You may not be successful,
but there at least the perfect gentlemanliness and good taste of your
illustrations will not be thrown away."
"I think of going to San Francisco tomorrow, anyway," returned Jack with
affected carelessness. "I'm getting rather bored with this wild seaside
watering place and its glitter of ocean and hopeless background of
mountain. It's nothing to me that 'there's no land nearer than Japan'
out there. It may be very healthful to the tissues, but it's weariness
to the spirit, and I don't see why we can't wait at San Francisco till
the rains send us further south, as well as here."
He had walked to the balcony of their sitting-room in the little seaside
hotel where this conversation took place, and gazed discontentedly over
the curving bay and sandy shore before him. After a slight pause Mrs.
Ashwood stepped out beside him.
"Very likely I may go with you," she said, with a perceptible tone of
weariness. "We will see after the post arrives."
"By the way, there is a little package for you in my room, that came
this morning.
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