was worth while to such
people in a way that made the ordinary entertainments and amusements of
her life a monstrous silly waste of time. With the facility of her sex
she would pick up from one of them the idea that made life worth while
for him. I am inclined to think there was someone in her case who did
seem to promise a sort of life that was worth while. And that somehow
the war came to alter the look of that promise.

"How?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I am only romancing. But for this young woman
I am convinced this expedition to Europe has meant experience, harsh
educational experience and very profound mental disturbance. There have
been love experiences; experiences that were something more than the
treats and attentions and proposals that made up her life when she was
sheltered over there. And something more than that. What it is I don't
know. The war has turned an ugly face to her. She has seen death and
suffering and ruin. Perhaps she has seen people she knew killed. Perhaps
the man has been killed. Or she has met with cowardice or cruelty or
treachery where she didn't expect it. She has been shocked out of the
first confidence of youth. She has ceased to take the world for granted.
It hasn't broken her but it has matured her. That I think is why history
has become real to her. Which so attracts you in her. History, for her,
has ceased to be a fabric of picturesque incidents; it is the study of a
tragic struggle that still goes on. She sees history as you see it and I
see it. She is a very grown-up young woman.

"It's just that," said Sir Richmond. "It's just that. If you see as much
in Miss Grammont as all that, why don't you want to come on with us? You
see the interest of her."

"I see a lot more than that. You don't know what an advantage it is to
be as I am, rather cold and unresponsive to women and unattractive and
negligible--negligible, that is the exact word--to them. YOU can't look
at a woman for five minutes without losing sight of her in a mist
of imaginative excitement. Because she looks back at you. I have the
privilege of the negligible--which is a cool head. Miss Grammont has a
startled and matured mind, an original mind. Yes. And there is something
more to be said. Her intelligence is better than her character."

"I don't quite see what you are driving at."

"The intelligence of all intelligent women is better than their
characters. Goodness in a woman, as we understand it, seems to imply