"I'm twenty-three; that's a lot older than you are."
"No, it isn't. A girl is always older than a boy, no matter what their ages."
That sounded illogical and complicated enough to be true. I didn't want, however, to surrender Agnes too easily.
"What ought a woman to be?" I followed up.
"A person of commonsense; not a silly, affected creature made in man's image—like Agnes."
"My truly first love was a fairy princess."
"A blonde, of course. Man again," and Helen replaced, I think unconsciously, a stray lock of most delicious brown hair.
"I was only nine years old."
"I told you a man's age never made any difference."
To this I had no satisfactory reply.