Gloria Hanford dandled her calf provocatively and caused the hem of her skirt to rise another half-inch. The scholar's eyes swung, clung, and were jerked away again.
"What's wrong with me, Scholar Ross?" she asked in a throaty voice.
"You are headstrong, self-willed, wild, and—" his voice failed because he wanted to lash out at her for her brazen and deliberate display of her bare ankle; he struggled to find a drawing-room word for her that would not wholly offend the hapless parents and ultimately came up with—"meretricious."
Gloria said, "I'm all that just because I enjoy a little fun?"
"You may call it fun to scare people to death by flying your aircar below roof level along the city streets, but the Department of Air Traffic says that it is both dangerous and illegal."
"Pooh!"
Paul Hanford said, "Gloria, it isn't that you don't know better."
Mrs. Hanford said, "Paul, how have we failed as parents?"