_think_. Most young women don't. They're seldom taught any rational
process of arriving at conclusions. You have developed that faculty. It
has been my pride and pleasure to cultivate in you what I believed to be
a decided mentality. I've tried to show you how to get down to
fundamentals, to work out a philosophy of life that's really workable.
Knowledge is worth having for its own sake. Once you find yourself in
contact with the world--and for you that time is bound to come--you'll
apply all the knowledge you've absorbed to problems as they arise. If
there's a rational solution to any situation that faces you, you'll make
an effort to find that solution. You'll do it almost instinctively. You
can't help it. Your brain is too alert ever to let you act blindly. At
the present your lack of experience probably handicaps you a little. In
human relations you have nothing much but theory, got from the books
you've digested and the way we've always discussed every possible angle
of life. Take Tommy Ashe. He's practically the first young, attractive
white man you've ever met, the very first possibility as a lover.
Tommy's a nice boy, a pleasant, sunny-natured young fellow. Personally
he's just the sort of fellow that would sweep a simple country girl
clean off her feet. With you, your mind, as you just put it, acts as a
brake on your feelings. Can't you guess why?"

"No," she said quietly. "I can't. I don't understand myself and my
shifts of feeling. It makes me miserable."

"Look here, Sophie girl," Carr reached over and taking her by the hand
drew her up on the low arm of his chair, "you're asking yourself a more
or less important question directly, and you're asking it of me
indirectly. Maybe I can help you. At least I can tell how I see it. You
have all your life before you. You want to be happy. That's a universal
human attribute. Sometime or other you're going to mate with a man. That