"I jumped at the idea. It was a God-send. I have had so little to do. I don't care for poker and one can't read all the time.... But after they left I reflected that I should cut a rather ridiculous figure studying economies in the abstract if I didn't have sense and 'go' enough to manage my own affairs. Why, I was so ignorant I thought I couldn't draw any money from the bank because I had given you my power of attorney. Aileen has an allowance and the Judge makes her keep books. She usually comes out about even at poker in the course of the month, and if she doesn't she pawns something. I've been with her to pawn shops and it's the greatest fun. I don't mind telling you, as I know you never betray a confidence. The Judge would lock poor dear Aileen up on bread and water. "Sibyl manages those two great houses herself. Frank gives her some stupendous sum a year and she is proud of the fact that she never runs over it. You know how she entertains. "I should never dare admit to them--or to the professor if he asked my opinion on that sort of thing and it had to come out--that I was too lazy and too incompetent to manage my own little fortune. So I went down first thing Monday morning and revoked my power of attorney. I simply couldn't wait. When the estate is settled and turned over to me I shall attend to everything and not bother you, Morty dear." III Morty dear looked at her with a long hard suspicious stare. Alexina thoughtfully turned up her eyes and changed promptly from a poplar into a saint. "I don't like it. I don't like it at all." Words were never his strong point and he could find none now adequate to express his feelings. "I may be old-fashioned--" "You are, Morty. That is your only fault. You belong to the old school of American husbands--" "There are plenty of old-fashioned people left in the world." "So there are, poor dears. It's going to be so hard for them--" "Are you trying to be one of those infernal new women?" "Well, you see, I just naturally am a child of my times, in spite of my old-fashioned family. I'd be much the same if I'd never taken any interest in all these wonderful modern movements." "It's those chums of yours--Aileen, Sibyl, Janet. I never did wholly approve of them." "Neither did mother and Maria, but it never made any difference." "Do you mean to say that you intend to ignore me ... disobey me?" "Oh, Morty, I never promised to obey you. You know the fun we all had at the rehearsal. You haven't noticed, these three years, that I've had my way, in pretty nearly everything, merely because it happened to be your way too. We've been living in a sort of pleasure garden, just playing about, with mother as the good old fairy. But everything has changed. We must look out for ourselves now, and I cannot put the whole burden on your shoulders--" "I do not mind in the least. That is where it belongs."