He affected an ignorance which was not a fact.
"Who is this paragon, anyhow?"
"I thought mother might have told you. It's Mr. Ayling."
"Oh, that teacher fellow!"
"He's more than that, dad. He's a professor in one of our greatest universities. He's a writer beginning to be recognized as having ideas. He has a position of his own—"
"Yes; but only an intellectual one."
She raised her eyebrows.
"'Only'?"
He straightened himself and prepared for business.
"Look here, Edith, don't kid yourself. An intellectual position in this country is no position at all. The American people have no use for the intellectual, and they've made that plain."