Jim laughed lazily:
"The restless sex is setting the world by the ears," he said tormentingly. "All this femininist business, this intrusion into man's affairs, this fidgety dissatisfaction with a perfectly good civilization, is spoiling you all."
"Is that the sort of thing you're putting into your wonderful novel?" she inquired.
"No, it's too unimportant "
"Dad! Let's ignore him! Now, dear, if you feel as you do about a career for me at present, I really think I had better go to college. I do love pleasure, but somehow the sort of pleasure I'm supposed to enjoy doesn't last; and it's the people, I think, that tire one very quickly. It does make a difference in dancing, doesn't it? not to hear an idea uttered during an entire evening not to find anybody thinking for themselves "
"Oh, Steve!" laughed Jim, "you're not expected to think at your age! All that society expects of you is that you chatter incessantly during dinner and the opera and do your thinking in a ballroom with your feet!"
She was laughing, but an unwonted colour brightened her cheeks as she turned on him from the padded arm of John Cleland's chair, where she had been sitting:
"If I really thought you meant that, Jim, I'd spend the remainder of my life in proving to you that I have a mind."
"Never mind him, Steve," said John Cleland. "If you wish to go to college, you shall."
"How about looking after us?" inquired Jim, alarmed.
"Dad, if my being here is going to make you more comfortable," she said, "I'll remain. Really, I am serious. Don't you want me to go?"
"Are you really so restless, Steve?"
"Mentally," she replied, with a defiant glance at Jim.