"You see," continued Miss Cursiter, as if defending herself from some accusation conveyed by the frown, "as it is we have kept her on a long while for her sister's sake." (A murmur from the Classical Mistress.) "Of course we must put it to her prettily, wrap it up--in tissue paper." (The Classical Mistress is still inarticulate.) "You are not giving me your opinion." "It seems to me I've said a great deal more than I've any right to say." "Oh you. We know all about that. I asked for your opinion." "And when I gave it you told me I was under an influence." "What if I did? And what if it were so?" "What indeed? You would get the benefit of two opinions instead of one." Now if Miss Cursiter were thinking of Dr. Cautley there was some point in what Rhoda said; for in the back of her mind the Head had a curious respect for masculine judgment. "There can be no two opinions about Miss Quincey." "I don't know. Miss Quincey," said Rhoda thoughtfully to her pencil, "is a large subject." "Yes, if you mean that Miss Quincey is a terrible legacy from the past. The question for me is--how long am I to let her hamper our future?" "The future? It strikes me that we're not within shouting distance of the future. We talk as if we could see the end, and we're nowhere near it, we're in all the muddle of the middle--that's why we're hampered with Miss Quincey and other interesting relics of the past." "We are slowly getting rid of them." At that Rhoda blazed up. She was young, and she was reckless, and she had too many careers open to her to care much about consequences. Miss Cursiter had asked for her opinion and she should have it with a vengeance. "It's not enough to get rid of them. We ought to provide for them. Who or what do we provide for, if it comes to that? We're always talking about specialisation, and the fact is we haven't specialised enough. Don't we give the same test papers to everybody?" "I shall be happy to set separate papers for each girl if you'll undertake to correct them." The more Rhoda fired the more Miss Cursiter remained cold. "That's just it--we couldn't if we tried. We know nothing about each girl. That's where we shall have to specialise in the future if we're to do any good. We've specialised enough with our teachers and our subjects; chipped and chopped till we can't divide them any more; and we've taken our girls in the lump. We know less about them than they do themselves. As for the teachers--" "Which by the way brings us back to Miss Quincey." "Everything brings us back to Miss Quincey. Miss Quincey will be always with us." "We must put younger women in her place." Rhoda winced as though Miss Cursiter had struck her. "They will soon grow old. Our profession is a cruel one. It uses up the finest and most perishable parts of a woman's nature. It takes the best years of her life--and throws the rest away." "Yet thousands of women are willing to take it up, and leave comfortable homes to do it too."