“Never mind!” said the girl. “You were not unkind. But I must not sing, and I must never learn a note of music, and worst of all I must not go to places where they play fine music. If I ever get to liking you very well indeed, perhaps I’ll tell you why—at least all the why of it that I know myself—for I know only a little about it. Now tell me what else you know about me. You see you were wrong this time.”
“Yes, in a way. Never mind that. I know that you are a rigid disciplinarian. You keep your hounds under a sharp control.”
“Oh, I must do that. They would eat somebody up if I didn’t. Besides it is good for them. You see dogs and women need strict control. A mistress will do for dogs, but every woman needs a master.”
The girl said this as simply and earnestly as she might have said that all growing plants need water and sunshine. Arthur was astonished at the utterance, delivered, as it was, in the manner of one who speaks the veriest truism.
“Now,” he responded, “I have encountered something in you that I not only do not understand but cannot even guess at. Where did you learn that cynical philosophy?”
“Do you mean what I said about dogs?”
“No. Though ‘cynic’ means a dog. I mean what you said about women. Where did you get the notion that every woman needs a master?”
“Why, anybody can see that,” answered the girl. “Every girl’s father or brother is her master till she grows up and marries. Then her husband is her master. Women are always very bad if they haven’t masters, and even when they mean to be good, they make a sad mess of their lives if they have nobody to control them.”
If this slip of a girl had talked Greek or Sanscrit or the differential calculus at him, Arthur could not have been more astounded than he was. Surely a girl so young, so fresh, and so obviously wholesome of mind could never have formulated such a philosophy of life for herself, even had she been thrown all her days into the most complex of conditions and surroundings, instead of leading the simplest of lives as this girl had manifestly done, and seeing only other living like her own. But he forbore to question her, lest he trespass again upon delicate ground, as he had done with respect to music. He was quick to remember that he had already asked her where she had learned her philosophy, and that she had nimbly evaded the question—defending her philosophy as a thing obvious to the mind, instead of answering the inquiry as to whence she had drawn the teaching.
Altogether, Arthur Brent’s mind was in a whirl as he left the luncheon table. Simple as she seemed and transparent as her personality appeared to him to be, the girl’s attitude of mind seemed inexplicable even to his practised understanding. Her very presence in the house was a puzzle, for Aunt Polly had offered no explanation of the fact that she seemed to belong there, not as a guest but as a member of the household, and even as one exercising authority there. For not only had the girl apologized for leaving Aunt Polly to order the luncheon, but at table and after the meal was finished, it was she, and not the elder woman who gave directions to the servants, who seemed accustomed to think of her as the source of authority, and finally, as she withdrew from the dining room, she turned to Arthur and said: