"That’s right. I’m very glad. Take it with you and finish it. It’ll do you good."
"How can it?"
He ran his fingers through his hair and surveyed her thoughtfully.
"In the first place," he said, "it’s a very good thing to read history. I read a great deal of it—lives of famous men, and so on. In the second place, it’ll give you some idea of what a woman can do."
"Yes, I know; only they’re all bad women," said Angelica, with simplicity.
Eddie flushed.
"Yes, but—everything was different in those days. They didn’t have our opportunities. Anyway, in some of the other volumes there are plenty of women who weren’t bad—Romans, and so on. What I meant is that it shows you what an influence a woman can have if she tries."
"I guess they didn’t have to try."
"Of course they did. They wanted to be powerful. They wanted to be magnificent. There aren’t any women like that now—no more magnificent women."
He fell silent, to think for a time of his mother, of Polly, of the clerks in his office, of girls he had danced with, of girls on the stage, of all his limited feminine acquaintance. Not a vestige of magnificence!