Nor was she over fond of children. As she told Trudy, children were absorbing things and goodness knew if she ever had any of her own she would have a wonderful enough nursery and sun parlour with panels designed by a child psychologist; there was everything in first impressions. But take care of one of them? The actual responsibility? Heavens, what a fate! She would engage a trained baby nurse--and then drop in at the nursery for a few moments each day to see that everything was going well. Later, after the trying first years, she would be very proud of her children. Besides, planning children's clothes was a great deal of fun; and if she had a daughter she would see that the daughter married properly. Whether or not she was thinking of Steve, Trudy did not dare to ask; but she evidently was, as she added that one might better marry an impoverished nobleman and live in an atmosphere of culture and smart society than marry someone who never attempted to be anything. A child demanded of one intelligence up to a certain point, and faithful service, but it did not require keen intellect. A primitive knowledge of what their hurt or hunger or plain-temper cry meant--and a primitive tender fashion of coping with whichever it might be--were all that young babies demanded; and hence the Gorgeous Girl, like all finely bred and thoroughly selfish women of to-day who are bent on psychological nursery panels, refused to be tied down to the narrow routine of a nursemaid, as she called it. Love-gardening is the title old-fashioned gentlewomen originated. Then Beatrice cited how carefree Jill Briggs was with her four children. Goodness knew that Jill was always within hailing distance of the big time; and except for a few little illnesses and the fact that the oldest boy had died of croup the children were a complete success and perfect darlings, and Jill dressed them like old-style portraits. Besides, Jill had tried out a new system of education on the oldest boy; he had been taught to develop his individuality to the highest possible degree. At eight, just before the croup attack--though he did not know his alphabet or how to tell time and had never been cuddled or rocked to sleep with nursery jingles as soothing mental food--he could play quite a shrewd game of poker and drive a bug roadster. Beatrice, in talking over the child problem with Trudy, decided that if she ever had a son she, too, would develop the poker shark in him rather than the admirer of Santa Claus and the student of Mother Goose. "Of course Steve thinks a woman should drudge and slave over those crying mites as if the nation depended upon it," she concluded, "but I should never pay any attention to him. He said, in front of Jill, that he always felt well acquainted with rich children, for he had passed a similar childhood--meaning that living in an orphan asylum and being brought up by a nursemaid were much the same thing. Quite lovely of him, wasn't it?"