"Probably half. She is real, I think, in her courage, but not in her conventions."
"Well, I confess that she puzzles me. I can't see just what she means."
"I doubt if she means anything. She is a vital spirit; she chafes at chains; and she is smarting from a sense of inferiority. There is a thirst for power in her little body that may make her either an actress or a politician."
"Now, it seems to me that if she has any sense it is one of superiority. She treated me like a brick under her feet."
For a minute Corinna was silent. The smile on her lips had grown tenderly humorous; and there was a softness in her eyes which made him sorry that he had not known her when he was a child. "Do you know what she told me to-day?" she said. "She studies a page of the dictionary every morning, and she tries to remember and practise all day the new words that she learns. She is now in the letter M."
A peal of merriment interrupted her. "That explains it!" exclaimed Stephen with unaffected delight, "maneuver—misinformation—multitude—"
"So she has practised on you too?"
"Oh, they all practise on me," he retorted. "It is what I was made for."
"Well, as long as it is only words, you are safe, I suppose."
He denied this with a gesture. "It is everything you can possibly practise with—from puddings to pigeons."