“You are very penetrating,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, “that is exactly what I am doing. When I was a girl, my brothers and sisters and I used to discuss the question of the sovereignty of the will. Most of us believed in it devoutly. We regarded circumstance as an annoying trifle, that no person who respected himself would allow to stand in his way. I want to try that theory and see what comes of it.”
“You alarm me, Mrs. Temperley.”
“Yes, people always do seem to get alarmed when one attempts to put their favourite theories in practice.”
“But really—for a woman——”
“The sovereignty of the will is a dangerous doctrine?”
“Well, as things are; a young woman, a beautiful woman.”
“You recall an interesting memory,” she said.
“Ah, that is unkind.”
Her smile checked him.
“When you fall into a mocking humour, you are quite impracticable.”