_As the rector moves to shake hands with Franklyn, feeling that he is making a frightful mess of his departure, a vigorous sunburnt young lady with hazel hair cut to the level of her neck, like an Italian youth in a Gozzoli picture, comes in impetuously. She seems to have nothing on but her short skirt, her blouse, her stockings, and a pair of Norwegian shoes: in short, she is a Simple-Lifer._ THE SIMPLE-LIFER [_swooping on Conrad and kissing him_] Hallo, Nunk. Youre before your time. CONRAD. Behave yourself. Theres a visitor. _She turns quickly and sees the rector. She instinctively switches at her Gozzoli fringe with her fingers, but gives it up as hopeless._ FRANKLYN. Mr Haslam, our new rector. [_To Haslam_] My daughter Cynthia. CONRAD. Usually called Savvy, short for Savage. SAVVY. I usually call Mr Haslam Bill, short for William. [_She strolls to the hearthrug, and surveys them calmly from that commanding position_]. FRANKLYN. You know him? SAVVY. Rather. Sit down, Bill. FRANKLYN. Mr Haslam is going, Savvy. He has an engagement. SAVVY. I know. I'm the engagement. CONRAD. In that case, would you mind taking him into the garden while I talk to your father? SAVVY [_to Haslam_] Tennis? HASLAM. Rather! SAVVY. Come on. [_She dances out. He runs boyishly after her_]. FRANKLYN [_leaving his table and beginning to walk up and down the room discontentedly_] Savvy's manners jar on me. They would have horrified her grandmother. CONRAD [_obstinately_] They are happier manners than Mother's manners. FRANKLYN. Yes: they are franker, wholesomer, better in a hundred ways. And yet I squirm at them. I cannot get it out of my head that Mother was a well-mannered woman, and that Savvy has no manners at all. CONRAD. There wasnt any pleasure in Mother's fine manners. That makes a biological difference. FRANKLYN. But there was beauty in Mother's manners, grace in them, style in them: above all, decision in them. Savvy is such a cub. CONRAD. So she ought to be, at her age. FRANKLYN. There it comes again! Her age! her age! CONRAD. You want her to be fully grown at eighteen. You want to force her into a stuck-up, artificial, premature self-possession before she has any self to possess. You just let her alone: she is right enough for her years. FRANKLYN. I have let her alone; and look at the result! Like all the other young people who have been let alone, she becomes a Socialist. That is, she becomes hopelessly demoralized. CONRAD. Well, arnt you a Socialist?