"And then what?"
"How do I know, Jim? A girl ought to have her chance. She ought to have her fling, too, if she wants it—just as much as any man. It's the only way she can learn anything. And I've concluded," she added, looking curiously at him, "that it's the only way she can ever become really interesting to a man."
"How?" he demanded. "By having what you call her fling?"
"Yes. Men aren't much interested in girls who know nothing except what men permit them to know. A girl at college said that the one certain source of interest to any man in any woman is his unsatisfied curiosity concerning her. Satisfy it, and he loses interest."
Cleland laughed:
"That's college philosophy," he said.
Stephanie smiled:
"It is what a man doesn't know about a woman that keeps his interest in her stimulated. It isn't her mind which is merely stored with the conventional—the conventional being determined and prescribed by men. It isn't even her character or her traits or her looks which can keep his interest unflagging. What deeply interests a man is an educated, cultivated girl who has had as much experience as he has, and who is likely to have further experience in the world without advice from him or asking his permission. No other woman can hold the interest of a man for very long."
"That's what you've learned at Vassar, is it?"
"It's one of the things," said Stephanie, smiling faintly.