“I find this Lahitte a most pretentious fellow.”
“He is not in the least what I expected a Frenchman to be like. I can’t understand his being so fair.”
“What is it you have undertaken?”
He was suddenly grave and impressed by the idea of the lecture … why would it be such good practice for her to read and correct it?
Her answer plunged him into thought from which he branched forth with sudden eagerness … a French translation of a Russian book revealing marvellously the interior, the self life, of a doctor, through his training and experience in practice. It would be a revelation to English readers and she should translate it; in collaboration with him; if she would excuse the intimate subjects it necessarily dealt with. He was off and back again with the book and reading rapidly while she still pondered his grave enthusiasm over her recent undertaking. In comparison with this idea of translating a book, it seemed nothing. But that was only one of his wild notions. It would take years of evenings of hard work. Meanwhile someone else would do it. They would work at it together. With Saturdays and Sundays it would not take so long … it would set her standing within the foreign world