"You're like all men - you dislike the idea of women competing.
It is incredible to you that women should want a career.
It was incredible to my parents.
I was anxious to study for a doctor.
They would not hear of paying the fees.
But they paid them readily for Owen. Yet I should have made a better doctor than my brother."
"I'm sorry about that," I said.
"It was tough on you.
If one wants to do a thing -"
She went on quickly.
"Oh, I've got over it now.
I've plenty of willpower.
My life is busy and active. I'm one of the happiest people in Lymstock.
Plenty to do.
But I go up in arms against the silly old-fashioned prejudice that woman's place is always the home."
"I'm sorry if I offended you," I said.
I had had no idea that Aimйe Griffith could be so vehement.
Chapter 3
I met Symmington in the town later in the day.
"Is it quite all right for Megan to stay on with us for a bit?" I asked.
"It's company for Joanna - she's rather lonely sometimes with none of her own friends."
"Oh - er - Megan?
Oh, yes, very good of you."
I took a dislike to Symmington then which I never quite overcame.
He had so obviously forgotten all about Megan.
I wouldn't have minded if he had actively disliked the girl - a man may sometimes be jealous of a first husband's child - but he didn't dislike her, he just hardly noticed her.
He felt toward her much as a man who doesn't care much for dogs would feel about a dog in the house.
You notice it when you fall over it and swear at it, and you give it a vague pat sometimes when it presents itself to be patted.
Symmington's complete indifference to his stepdaughter annoyed me very much.
I said, "What are you planning to do with her?"
"With Megan?"
He seemed rather startled.
"Well, she'll go on living at home.
I mean, naturally, it is her home."
My grandmother, of whom I had been very fond, used to sing old-fashioned songs to her guitar.
One of them, I remember, ended thus: "Oh, maid most dear, I am not here,
I have no place, no part,
No dwelling more, by sea nor shore,
But only in your heart."
I went home humming it.
Emily Barton came just after tea had been cleared away.
I wanted to talk about the garden.
We talked garden for about half an hour. Then we turned back toward the hothouse.
It was then that, lowering her voice, she murmured,
"I do hope that that child - that, she hasn't been too much upset by all his dreadful business?"
"Her mother's death, you mean?
"That, of course.
But I really meant, the - the unpleasantness behind it."
I was curious.
I wanted Miss Barton's reaction.