Praed [who has just unfolded his chair] Oh, now do let me take that hard chair.  I like hard chairs.

Vivie.  So do I. Sit down, Mr Praed. [This invitation she gives with a genial peremptoriness, his anxiety to please her clearly striking her as a sign of weakness of character on his part.  But he does not immediately obey].

Praed. By the way, though, hadnt we better go to the station to meet your mother?

Vivie [coolly] Why?  She knows the way.

Praed [disconcerted] Er—­I suppose she does [he sits down].

Vivie.  Do you know, you are just like what I expected.  I hope you are disposed to be friends with me.

Praed [again beaming] Thank you, my dear Miss Warren; thank you.  Dear me!  I’m so glad your mother hasnt spoilt you!

Vivie.  How?

Praed. Well, in making you too conventional.  You know, my dear Miss Warren, I am a born anarchist.  I hate authority.  It spoils the relations between parent and child; even between mother and daughter.  Now I was always afraid that your mother would strain her authority to make you very conventional.  It’s such a relief to find that she hasnt.

Vivie.  Oh! have I been behaving unconventionally?

Praed. Oh no:  oh dear no.  At least, not conventionally unconventionally, you understand. [She nods and sits down.  He goes on, with a cordial outburst] But it was so charming of you to say that you were disposed to be friends with me!  You modern young ladies are splendid:  perfectly splendid!

Vivie [dubiously] Eh? [watching him with dawning disappointment as to the quality of his brains and character].

Praed. When I was your age, young men and women were afraid of each other:  there was no good fellowship.  Nothing real.  Only gallantry copied out of novels, and as vulgar and affected as it could be.  Maidenly reserve! gentlemanly chivalry! always saying no when you meant yes! simple purgatory for shy and sincere souls.

Vivie.  Yes, I imagine there must have been a frightful waste of time.  Especially women’s time.

Praed. Oh, waste of life, waste of everything.  But things are improving.  Do you know, I have been in a positive state of excitement about meeting you ever since your magnificent achievements at Cambridge:  a thing unheard of in my day.  It was perfectly splendid, your tieing with the third wrangler.  Just the right place, you know.  The first wrangler is always a dreamy, morbid fellow, in whom the thing is pushed to the length of a disease.

Vivie.  It doesn’t pay.  I wouldn’t do it again for the same money.

Praed [aghast] The same money!

Vivie.  Yes.  Fifty pounds.  Perhaps you don’t know how it was.  Mrs Latham, my tutor at Newnham, told my mother that I could distinguish myself in the mathematical tripos if I went in for it in earnest.  The papers were full just then of Phillipa Summers beating the senior wrangler.  You remember about it, of course.