“How old do you have to be, to be grown up?” asked Ruth.
“A man’s grown up when he’s twenty-one,” Ben stated firmly.
“Is Daddy twenty-one?” said Bunny.
Cries of scorn answered this. “Of course he is,” said Martin. “Daddy’s middle-age, he’s over thirty. He’s what they call primeoflife, I heard him say so.”
“That’s just before your hair begins to come out in the comb,” said Alec.
Bunny was undismayed, perhaps encouraged by seeing in front of her more ice cream than she had ever been left alone with before.
“Daddy isn’t grown up,” she insisted. “The other day when we played blind man’s buff on the beach, Mother said he was just a big boy.”
“Girls grow up quicker,” said Phyllis. “My sister’s eighteen, she’s so grown up she’ll hardly speak to me. It happened all at once. She went for a week-end party, when she came back she was grown up.”
“That’s not grown up,” said Ben. “That’s just stuck up. Girls get like that. It’s a form of nervousness.”
They were not aware that Ben had picked up this phrase by overhearing it applied to some eccentricities of his own. They were impressed, and for a moment the ice cream and cake engaged all attentions. Then a round of laughter from the veranda reopened the topic.