“A girl is a lot older than a boy,” she said. “She apprehends life more fully; your sex, until you are a responsible age, is just out for fun. But there’s a time limit to one’s capacity for enjoyment. In a few years I shall settle down to the routine, whatever it is that offers; and if I haven’t had my good time, I’ll just be a discontented dull reflection of the others. I know. And I’m going to guard against that.”
“But how?” he persisted. “What do you mean to do?”
“I haven’t thought that out,” Prudence answered after a moment for reflection. “I don’t know that I should confide in you if I had.”
He smiled at that, and stopped and lighted himself a cigarette.
“I don’t care what you do,” he said, and added cheerfully: “I only hope you will have a good time. You know you’re awfully pretty, Prue, and—and interesting, and all that.”
“Am I?” Prudence laughed again, and there was a note of satisfaction in her mirth. “I thank Providence that I am pretty; it makes things easier. But if I were plain I should still insist on my good time. It doesn’t necessarily include the homage of man. That’s a side issue. It is sometimes a means to an end, but the end is the thing which matters. I want my own individual life.”
“I don’t want any own individual life like that,” Bobby confessed in thoughtful seriousness. “I want a home of my own, of course, and—a wife, and all those jolly things.”
“At seventeen?” she scoffed.
And then he confided to her that he had met the divinity he hoped to marry at the home of a school chum. She was nearly as old as he was, and she was quite prepared to marry him as soon as circumstances permitted. She was a ripping good sort and very high spirited.
“You had better invite her to stay at Wortheton before the ceremony,” Prudence advised him. “If that doesn’t put her off, you’ll be sure of her genuine affection anyway.”