"Nothing you could say would make me angry,—though you might make me very unhappy."
"I will not do that if I can help it. A mentor ought to be very old, you know, and I am infinitely older than you are."
"I should have thought it was the reverse;—indeed, I may say that I know that it is," said Phineas.
"I am not talking of years. Years have very little to do with the comparative ages of men and women. A woman at forty is quite old, whereas a man at forty is young." Phineas, remembering that he had put down Mr. Kennedy's age as forty in his own mind, frowned when he heard this, and walked about the room in displeasure. "And therefore," continued Lady Laura, "I talk to you as though I were a kind of grandmother."
"You shall be my great-grandmother if you will only be kind enough to me to say what you really think."
"You must not then be so impetuous, and you must be a little more careful to be civil to persons to whom you may not take any particular fancy. Now Mr. Kennedy is a man who may be very useful to you."
"I do not want Mr. Kennedy to be of use to me."
"That is what I call being impetuous,—being young,—being a boy. Why should not Mr. Kennedy be of use to you as well as any one else? You do not mean to conquer the world all by yourself."
"No;—but there is something mean to me in the expressed idea that I should make use of any man,—and more especially of a man whom I don't like."
"And why do you not like him, Mr. Finn?"