“And what does the Dean say to your views?” Alan interposed doubtfully.

Herminia laughed again.  If her eyes were profound, two dimples saved her.  “I thought you were with us,” she answered with a twinkle; “now, I begin to doubt it.  You don’t expect a man of twenty-two to be governed in all things, especially in the formation of his abstract ideas, by his father’s opinions.  Why then a woman?”

“Why, indeed?” Alan answered.  “There I quite agree with you.  I was thinking not so much of what is right and reasonable as of what is practical and usual.  For most women, of course, are—­well, more or less dependent upon their fathers.”

“But I am not,” Herminia answered, with a faint suspicion of just pride in the undercurrent of her tone.  “That’s in part why I went away so soon from Girton.  I felt that if women are ever to be free, they must first of all be independent.  It is the dependence of women that has allowed men to make laws for them, socially and ethically.  So I wouldn’t stop at Girton, partly because I felt the life was one-sided,—­our girls thought and talked of nothing else on earth except Herodotus, trigonometry, and the higher culture,—­ but partly also because I wouldn’t be dependent on any man, not even my own father.  It left me freer to act and think as I would.  So I threw Girton overboard, and came up to live in London.”

“I see,” Alan replied.  “You wouldn’t let your schooling interfere with your education.  And now you support yourself?” he went on quite frankly.

Herminia nodded assent.

“Yes, I support myself,” she answered; “in part by teaching at a high school for girls, and in part by doing a little hack-work for newspapers.”

“Then you’re just down here for your holidays, I suppose?” Alan put in, leaning forward.

“Yes, just down here for my holidays.  I’ve lodgings on the Holmwood, in such a dear old thatched cottage; roses peep in at the porch, and birds sing on the bushes.  After a term in London, it’s a delicious change for one.”

“But are you alone?” Alan interposed again, still half hesitating.

Herminia smiled once more; his surprise amused her.  “Yes, quite alone,” she answered.  “But if you seem so astonished at that, I shall believe you and Mrs. Dewsbury have been trying to take me in, and that you’re not really with us.  Why shouldn’t a woman come down alone to pretty lodgings in the country?”

“Why not, indeed?” Alan echoed in turn.  “It’s not at all that I disapprove, Miss Barton; on the contrary, I admire it; it’s only that one’s surprised to find a woman, or for the matter of that anybody, acting up to his or her convictions.  That’s what I’ve always felt; ’tis the Nemesis of reason; if people begin by thinking rationally, the danger is that they may end by acting rationally also.”

Herminia laughed.  “I’m afraid,” she answered, “I’ve already reached that pass.  You’ll never find me hesitate to do anything on earth, once I’m convinced it’s right, merely because other people think differently on the subject.”