conventions of his class in this matter. He asked me about it a few days
ago. I referred him to you. Are you going to?"

"I don't know, Dad," she murmured.

"Do you want to?" he pursued the inquiry in a detached, impersonal tone.

"I don't know," she repeated soberly. "I like Tommy a lot. When I'm with
him I feel sure I'd be perfectly happy to be always with him. When I'm
away from him, I'm not so sure."

"In other words," Carr observed slowly, "your reason and your emotions
are not in harmony on that subject. Eh? So far as Tommy Ashe goes, your
mind and your body pull you two different ways."

She looked at him a little more keenly.

"Perhaps," she said. "I know what you mean. But I don't clearly see why
it should be so. Either I love Tommy Ashe, or I don't, and I should know
which, shouldn't I? The first and most violent manifestation of love is
mostly physical, isn't it? I've always understood that. You've pointed
it out. I do like Tommy. Why should my mind act as a brake on my
feelings?"

"Because you happen to be made the way you are," Carr returned
thoughtfully. "As I've told you a good many times, you've grown up a
good deal different from the common run of girls. We've been isolated.
Lacking the time-occupying distractions and pleasures of youth in a more
liberal environment, Sophie, you've been thrown back on yourself and me
and books, and as a result you've cultivated a natural tendency to