He wrote, after her departure, a poem simple enough for a child to understand. And tucked it away with a ribbon and a dried flower in his portfolio. It was the first good thing he had ever written. But he remained unconscious of the fact for a long time.
Besides, other matters were bothering him, in particular a letter from Miss Quest:
I am not well. I shall not be better. Still, there is no particular hurry about your returning.
Stephanie remains with me very loyally. She has graduated; she is equipped with a profession. She has turned into a very lovely woman to look upon.
But that sex restlessness which now overwhelmingly obsesses the world, possesses her. Freedom from all restraint, liberty to work out and accomplish her own destiny, contempt of convention, utter disregard of established formality, and hostility to custom, enroll her among the vast army of revolutionists now demanding a revision of all laws and customs made by one sex alone to govern the conduct of both.
You and I once conversed on this subject, if you remember. I told you what I feared. And it has happened: Stephanie has developed along radical lines. With everything revolutionary in the world-wide feminist movement she is in sympathy. Standards that have been standards are no longer so to her. To the world's conservatism she is fiercely and youthfully hostile; equality, tolerance, liberty are the only guide-posts she pretends to recognize.
I shall not live to see the outcome of this world-wide propaganda and revolt. I don't want to. But, in my opinion, it takes a strong character, already accustomed to liberty, to keep its balance in this dazzling flood let in by opening prison doors....
I have left Stephanie what property I have outside of that invested and endowed to maintain my Home for Defective Children. Securities have shrunk; it is not much. It may add four thousand dollars to her present income.
Mr. Cleland, you and Stephanie have gradually and very naturally grown apart since your absence. I don't know what you have developed into. But you were a nice boy.
Stephanie is a beautiful, willful, intelligent, and I fear slightly erratic woman, alive with physical and mental vigour, restless and sensitive under pressure of control, yet to be controlled through her affections first, and only afterward through her reason.