"Oh, I didn't think——"
"You ought to have, though," interrupted he. "A man like me is a rare exception. I'm a rare exception to my ordinary self, to be quite honest. It'll be best for you always to assume that every man you run across is looking for just one thing. You know what?"
Susan, the flush gone from her cheeks, nodded.
"I suppose Connemora has put you wise. But there are some things even she don't know about that subject. Now, I want you to listen to your grandfather. Remember what he says. And think it over until you understand it."
"I will," said Susan.
"In the life you've come out of, virtue in a woman's everything. She's got to be virtuous, or at least to have the reputation of it—or she's nothing. You understand that?"
"Yes," said Susan. "I understand that—now."
"Very well. Now in the life you're going into, virtue in a woman is nothing—no more than it is in a man anywhere. The woman who makes a career becomes like the man who makes a career. How is it with a man? Some are virtuous, others are not. But no man lets virtue bother him and nobody bothers about his virtue. That's the way it is with a woman who cuts loose from the conventional life of society and home and all that. She is virtuous or not, as she happens to incline. Her real interest in herself, her real value, lies in another direction. If it doesn't, if she continues to be agitated about her virtue as if it were all there is to her—then the sooner she hikes back to respectability, to the conventional routine, why the better for her. She'll never make a career, any more than she could drive an automobile through a crowded street and at the same time keep a big picture hat on straight. Do you follow me?"
"I'm not sure," said the girl. "I'll have to think about it."
"That's right. Don't misunderstand. I'm not talking for or against virtue. I'm simply talking practical life, and all I mean is that you won't get on there by your virtue, and you won't get on by your lack of virtue. Now for my advice."