"Mother, you know what I mean. The young men nowadays can't talk any. They don't know half so much as the young women. Why, I feel superior to all the young men I know."
Mrs. Douglas looked amused.
"And I could never marry an inferior man. I would just despise myself and him, too. But why should I get married at all, mother? Why can't I just be a physical training teacher all my life?"
"I don't want you to marry an inferior man, You would just despise yourself and if you do not love in a natural way someone who is altogether worthy of you, you ought never to marry at all. What has made you think of it?"
Helen did not look up, and after a long pause Esther said gently, "Hide nothing?"
Then Helen looked up suddenly and burst out: "That horrid Mr. Damon proposed to me last night! I went with him to the organ recital and he was very nice at first, but on the way home he made a fool of himself and tried to make one of me. I told him I wouldn't marry him if he was the only man left. Why, mother, he is ten years older than I am, and he has false teeth and I believe he wears a wig and he makes a living selling rubber goods!" And at that Helen burst into a flood of weeping, laying her head down in her mother's lap.
When she was cried out, Esther said: "Mr. Damon is a good man, or I wouldn't have let you go with him. But I had no idea he was thinking of you that way. Of course he is out of the question. Not on account of the false teeth, the wig and the rubber goods, for women marry men with those encumbrances every day and are happy, but for other reasons."
"Mother, did you ever have any other proposals besides father's?"
"Yes, I had three while I was in college."
"At my age?"