“If you had brought them up to be like yourself they would have helped to keep the balance,” said Evan.
“Well, you shall send your daughters to me to bring up,” she said, turning her small sphinx face directly to him. “Evangeline will be engrossed in her boys. She thinks women of no importance.”
“It is not that,” said Evan, “but she thinks nothing of importance except liveliness and getting the pleasure out of everything that happens, and throwing away the rest. As soon as anything has to be bought at the price of discomfort it is worthless to her.”
“Do you think so?” said she, raising her eyebrows again. “Is your beautiful Ivor worth so little to her? You surprise me. I thought she was devoted to him.”
“So she is, but she won’t give herself the momentary pain of correcting him. It is the most fatal cowardice. I don’t know what to do to avert the end that I foresee.”
“You must have been a great deal with children,” she remarked, while she looked at him with grave inquiry. “Did you always care for them, or is it just that you understand them so well?”
“Every man knows the kind of way a boy ought to be brought up,” he replied innocently.
“And a woman, of course, understands a girl better?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“It is so much simpler that they should start on wholly different lines from the beginning.”