"I don't want anything but what will make for your happiness."
"My happiness as you see it for me—not as I see it for myself."
"But you're my child, Edith. I can't be without hopes for you."
Another dim, quickly dying smile was the only answer to this as Edith picked up her racket from the teakwood chair and moved toward the house. On a note that would have been plaintive had it not been so restrained, Mrs. Collingham continued:
"Edith darling, I don't think there's been a moment since you were born when I haven't dreamed of a brilliant future for you, and now—"
"But, oh, mother dear, what's the use of a brilliant future, as you call it, when your whole soul is set on something else?"
The lioness mother was roused.
"But it shouldn't be set on something else. That's what I resent. Don't think for a minute that your father and I mean to stand by and see you throw yourself away."
"I didn't know there was any question of my doing that."
"That boy will never be anything better than a university professor—never in this world; and if it comes to our forbidding it, forbid it we shall without hesitation."