"What's the matter with Kitty, mother?"
"Jack Warner, I expect."
"Hum! I don't think so."
"Men don't know everything, Tom."
"They don't know anything about women; their best efforts in that line are only guesses at truth."
"Go to bed, Tom Duffan; you are getting prosy and ridiculous. Kitty will explain herself in the morning."
But Kitty did not explain herself, and she daily grew more and more inexplicable. She began to read: Max brought the books, and she read them. She began to practice: Max liked music, and wanted to sing with her. She stopped crimping her hair: Max said it was unnatural and inartistic. She went to scientific lectures and astronomical lectures and literary societies: Max took her.
Tom Duffan did not quite like the change, for Tom was of that order of men who love to put their hearts and necks under a pretty woman's foot. He had been so long used to Kitty dominant, to Kitty sarcastic, to Kitty willful, to Kitty absolute, that he could not understand the new Kitty.
"I do not think our little girl is quite well, mother," he said one day, after studying his daughter reading the Endymion without a yawn.
"Tom, if you can't 'think' to better purpose, you had better go on painting. Kitty is in love."