"Oh no," she answered, trying to smile and say something amusing after the manner of Gertrude; "they will only shake their heads at their daughters and say, 'There goes another rebel who isn't content to be beautiful, innocent, and protected.'" But Janet's attempts to be amusing were not successful with her father. "They won't at all. They'll say, 'At any rate her father is well off enough to give her enough to live upon, and not make her work as a governess.'" "_We_ know that's got nothing to do with it. If I were dependent, I should feel I'd less right to choose----" "But you're mistaken; that's not honesty, but egoism, on your part." Janet had nothing to answer; there was a pause, as if her father wished her to argue the point. She thought, perhaps, she had better say something, else she would show too plainly that she saw he was in the wrong; but she said nothing, and he went on: "And what will people say at the idea of your being a governess? Practically a servant in a stranger's house, with a pretence of equality, but less pay than a good cook. What will all our friends say?" Janet did not wish to say to herself in so many words that her father was a snob. If he had left her alone, she would have been satisfied with the unacknowledged feeling that he attached importance to certain things. "Surely people of understanding know there's no harm in being a governess, and I'm quite willing to be ignored by anyone who can't see that." These were the first words she spoke with any warmth. "Selfishness again. It's not only your concern: what will your sister think and feel about it?" "Gerty is sensible enough to think as I do; besides, she is very happy, and so has no right to dictate to other people about their affairs; indeed, she won't trouble about it--why should she? I'm not part of her." "You're unjust to Gertrude: your sister is too sweet and modest to wish to dictate to any one." "Exactly." Janet could not help saying this one word, and yet she knew that it would irritate her father still more. "And who would take you as a governess? You don't find it easy to live even with your own people, and I don't know what you can teach. Perhaps you will reproach me as Laura did her mother, and say it was my fault you didn't go to Girton?" "Oh, I think I can manage. My music is not much, I know; but I think it's good enough to be useful." "Are you going to say that I was wrong in not encouraging you to train for a professional musician?" "I hadn't the faintest notion of reproaching you for anything: it was only modesty." She knew that having passed the period when she might have cried, she was being fatigued into the flippant stage, and her father hated that above everything. "Now you're beginning to sneer in your superior way," Dr. Worgan said, walking up the room, "talking to me as if I were an idiot----"