"Yes, and immodest; it's an outrageous suggestion!"
Mrs. Ogden took up her knitting again; the needles clicked irritatingly. Once or twice she closed her eyes, but her hands moved incessantly.
"Joan!" She swallowed and spoke as if under a great restraint.
"Yes, Mother?"
"If you were a boy I would say this to you, and since you seem to have chosen to assume an altogether ridiculous masculine role, listen to me. There are things that a gentleman can do and things he cannot; no gentleman can enter the medical profession, no Routledge has ever been known to do such a thing. Our men have served their country; they have served it gloriously, but a Routledge does not enter a middle-class profession. I wish to keep quite calm, Joan. I can understand your having acquired these strange ideas, for you have naturally been thrown very much with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth is—well, not quite one of us; but you will please remember who you are, and that I for one will never tolerate your behaving other than as a member of my family. I——"
The colonel interrupted her. "Listen to me," he thundered. In his anger he seemed to have regained some of his old vitality. "You listen to me, young woman; I'll have none of this nonsense under my roof. You think, I suppose, that your aunt has made you independent, but let me tell you that for the next six years you're nothing of the kind. Not one penny will I spend on any education that is likely to unsex a daughter of mine. I'll have none of these new-fangled woman's rights ideas in my house; you will stay at home like any other girl until such time as you get married. You will marry; do you hear me? That's a woman's profession! A sawbones indeed! Do you think you're a boy? Have you gone stark, staring mad?"
"No, I'm not mad," Joan said quietly, "but I don't think I shall marry, Father."
"Not marry, and why not, pray?"
She did not attempt to explain, for she herself did not know what had prompted her.
"I can wait," she told him. "It wouldn't be too late to begin when I'm twenty-one."