"I should rather put it that it will be nice for me to have a friend like him." Already a week's intimacy with young Wildacre had shaken my hitherto unquestioning acceptance of the dogma that one's elders are of necessity one's betters; but nothing would ever shake Annabel's.
"That is an absurd way of looking at it, Reggie. Young people may be rather a nuisance to us, but we must always be a help and comfort to them, and especially when—as in Frank's case—they have no parents of their own. You will try to prove next that even parents are no help to the young!"
"Far from it! I would ever go so far as to urge that they are more than a help—that they amount to a necessity. I quite agree that children can—and ought to—learn much from their parents; but the relation of a parent is unique. Because children must submit to their parents, it doesn't follow that they must submit to all their elders."
"Yes, it does, because it would be impossible for the parents not to be older than the children," replied Annabel triumphantly, "so that the one includes the other."
I marvelled at the reasoning powers of the female mind, and held my peace. Feeling that her logic had utterly confounded me, Annabel condescended to be gracious. "Still, of course, it is pleasant for you to have Frank as a companion," she deigned to admit. "He takes the place of that nephew which I always regret you never had."
"The remedy was in your own hands," I ventured to remark.
"Reggie, don't be coarse! I think the relation of uncles and aunts is a very agreeable one, as it provides all the pleasure of being a parent with none of the responsibility: at least, none of the overpowering responsibilities. Now if you'd had children, they would have been a source of great interest and pleasure to me."
"Who is being coarse now?" I demanded.
"Certainly not I; and it isn't very nice-minded of you to suggest such a thing. To the pure all things are pure."
I had never for a moment doubted Annabel's purity, so I humbly ceded the point. "I wonder if you would have been an equal source of interest and pleasure to them," I speculated.