"I can see it is all quite mad," he answered. "Suppose by some miracle you were to pass the entrance exams.—have you any idea how long they keep you grinding away afterwards?"
"Five to seven years," I said.
"Well! Can't you see what a wild idea it is?"
I said to myself: he knows about our straitened means. "You mean it costs such a great deal."
"It costs a great deal more than you think," he said, shifting about discontentedly in his chair.
Then I told him that my mother had some jewels. "I am sure that when she sees I am in earnest, when I have got my B. A., she will be willing I should use the jewels——"
"It's a dog's life," he said, "for a woman."
I gathered my precious papers together. "You think I shall mind the hard work. But I shan't."
"It isn't the hard work," he said, "though it's not easy for a man. For a woman——" he left the woman medical-student hanging over the abyss.
For all my questions I could not bring him to the point of saying what these bugbears were.