Paul flushed. "It isn't just an amusement; to me it is a lot more than that."
"I don't see how amusement can be anything more than amusement," persisted Joanna. "And to care too much about a pastime seems to me as wrong as to care too much about pleasure."
"Oh! can't you understand?" cried her brother. "Can't you see that in boating, as in everything else in life, there is considerably more than the thing itself? Of course rowing is a glorious exercise, and a fellow thoroughly enjoys it; but besides that, there is the esprit de corps, and the desire to have one's boat first on the river, and all that sort of thing, don't you know?"
"I see," said Alice.
"I don't think you girls realize how awfully it matters to a fellow that his college boat should be first. Why, I've seen men get soaked through, and yet forget all about themselves, and not care a rap how cold and damp they were—nor how ill they made themselves—as long as their boat won."
"I know," said Alice.
Now, as a matter of fact, Alice did not know one bit better than Joanna did; but she used her eyes much and her tongue little, and consequently had the reputation of being an extremely sympathetic young person. She had a pretty way of looking interested and of saying, "Yes, I know"; and women who do these things are beloved both by their own sex and the other. Alice was not insincere in thus doing. Her sympathy extended over a far wider area than her comprehension; and her eyes were truthful in the interest they expressed, though her brain did not grasp the why and wherefore of this interest.
Alice felt more than she understood, and Joanna understood more than she felt; consequently—and deservedly—Alice won more love from her kind than Joanna did; for the world is fair to people as a rule, and with what measure they mete it is measured to them withal. To a woman a heart is a more remunerative investment than a head, and a much more satisfactory possession; yet women are slow to perceive this. If only the women who have sufficient wit to say nasty things, had just so much more wit as would prevent them from saying the same, the world would be a pleasanter place, and the men who have married stupid wives would have less cause for self-congratulation than they have at present. For in a woman—as in a lemon—bitterness is an unpardonable defect; men, on the contrary—like grouse—are all the nicer for a flavour of it.
"To me," remarked Joanna obstinately, "rowing is merely a violent form of the 'bodily exercise' which 'profiteth little'; I cannot see anything else in it. I can understand that a man should want his own college to produce the best scholars in the university; but I cannot see how it can matter whether his boat is first on the river or not."
Paul groaned. "It is the firstness that matters, don't you see? whether it applies to the schools or the river."