Yet somehow the girl was aware that, in that brief moment of their grief when she had sought comfort in his brotherly caress and he had offered it, then suddenly repulsed her, a profound line of cleavage had opened between him and her; and that the cleft could never be closed. Neither seemed to be aware that anything had happened. The girl remained silent and thoughtful; and he became talkative after a while, telling her of his plans for travel, and that he had arranged for keeping open the house in case she and Miss Quest wished to spend any time in town. "I’ll write you from time to time and keep you informed of my movements," he said. "Two years pass quickly. By the time I’m back I’ll have a profession and so will you." She nodded. "Then," he went on, "I suppose Miss Quest had better come here and live with us." "I’m not coming back here." "What?" "I’m going about by myself—as you are going—to to observe and learn." "You wish to be foot-free?" "I do. I shall be my own mistress." "Of course," he said drily, "nobody can stop you." "Why should anybody wish to? I shall be twenty-one—nearly; I shall have a profession if I choose to practise it; I shall have my income—and all the world before me to investigate." "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. *CHAPTER XIV* The boy—for as yet he was only a boy—sailed in May. The girl—who was swiftly stripping from her the last rainbow chiffons of girlhood—was at the steamer to see him off—down from Poughkeepsie for that purpose.