"Why, indeed?" Alan answered. "There I quite agree with you. I

was thinking not so much of what is right and reasonable as of what

is practical and usual. For most women, of course, are--well, more

or less dependent upon their fathers."

"But I am not," Herminia answered, with a faint suspicion of just

pride in the undercurrent of her tone. "That's in part why I went

away so soon from Girton. I felt that if women are ever to be

free, they must first of all be independent. It is the dependence

of women that has allowed men to make laws for them, socially and

ethically. So I wouldn't stop at Girton, partly because I felt the

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life was one-sided,--our girls thought and talked of nothing else

on earth except Herodotus, trigonometry, and the higher culture,--

but partly also because I wouldn't be dependent on any man, not

even my own father. It left me freer to act and think as I would.

So I threw Girton overboard, and came up to live in London."

"I see," Alan replied. "You wouldn't let your schooling interfere

with your education. And now you support yourself?" he went on

quite frankly.

Herminia nodded assent.

"Yes, I support myself," she answered; "in part by teaching at a

high school for girls, and in part by doing a little hack-work for

newspapers."

"Then you're just down here for your holidays, I suppose?" Alan put

in, leaning forward.

"Yes, just down here for my holidays. I've lodgings on the

Holmwood, in such a dear old thatched cottage; roses peep in at the

porch, and birds sing on the bushes. After a term in London, it's

a delicious change for one."

"But are you alone?" Alan interposed again, still half hesitating.

Herminia smiled once more; his surprise amused her. "Yes, quite

alone," she answered. "But if you seem so astonished at that, I

shall believe you and Mrs. Dewsbury have been trying to take me in,

and that you're not really with us. Why shouldn't a woman come

down alone to pretty lodgings in the country?"

"Why not, indeed?" Alan echoed in turn. "It's not at all that I

disapprove, Miss Barton; on the contrary, I admire it; it's only

that one's surprised to find a woman, or for the matter of that

anybody, acting up to his or her convictions. That's what I've

always felt; 'tis the Nemesis of reason; if people begin by

thinking rationally, the danger is that they may end by acting

rationally also."




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