It isn't convenable."
"Oh, I see," said Rushford. "The first great principle of European
society seems to be, 'Think the worst of every one.'"
"Not precisely, dad; but no unmarried woman may venture outside the
circumference of the family circle. That's the great European
convention--the basic principle of her social order."
"A sort of 'tag, you're it,' game, isn't it? The family circle is a kind
of dead line--the ring of fire which keeps out the wild beasts. Step
over, and you're lost!"
"Of course," said Nell, "it is only to unmarried women that the rule
applies."
"Oh, certainly," assented her father. "Married women are allowed more
latitude--in fact, from such French novels as I've read, I should infer
that they usually swing clear around the circle! It's a reaction, I
suppose; a sort of compensation for the privations of their youth. I
don't like it. Let's go home!"
"But your promise, dad!" pleaded Sue, permitting the faintest suspicion
of moisture to appear in her dark eyes. "And you know you really do need
a vacation."
Her father looked down at her, saw the moisture, and surrendered.
"You're a humbug," he said; "and this vacation business is another. A
man spends two or three months loafing around because somebody tells him
he's looking badly and ought to take a rest; and before he knows it,
he's accumulated so much rust in his system that he never gets it all
out again.
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