rental authority?"

Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "You remember what
Cavour said?"

"Good Heaven! No, I don't remember!" cried Professor Marshall, with an
impatience which might have been Sylvia's.

"He said, 'Any idiot can rule by martial law.'"

"Yes, of course, that theory is all right, but--"

"If a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon."

Professor Marshall cried out in exasperation, "But see here,
Barbara--here is a concrete fact--our daughter--our precious
Sylvia--is making a horrible mistake--and because of a theory we
mustn't reach out a hand to pull her back."

"We _can't_ pull her back by force," said his wife. "She's eighteen
years old, and she has the habit of independent thought. We can't go
back on that now."

"We don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in any other way! We
seem to be just weakly sitting back and letting her do exactly as she
pleases."

"If during all these years we've had her under our influence we
haven't given her standards that--" began the mother.

"You heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and our standards
and--"

"Oh, what she _says_--it's what she's made of that'll count--that's
the _only_ thing that'll count when a crisis comes--"

Professor Marshall interrupted hastily: "When a crisis! What do you
call _this_ but a crisis--she's like a child about to put her hand
into the fire."

"I trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough nerves to
pull it out again when she feels the heat," said her mother steadily.

Professor Marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall, powerful,
helpless. "It's outrageous, Barbara, for all your talk! We're
responsible! We ought to shut her up under lock and key--"

"So _many_ girls have been deterred from a mistake by being shut up
under lock and key!" commented Mrs. Marshall, with an ironical accent.

"But, good Heavens! Think of her going to that old scoundrel's--how
can I look people in the face, when they all know my opinion of
him--how I've opposed his being a Trustee and--"

"_Ah_,--!" remarked his wife significantly, "that's the trouble, is
it?"

Professor Marshall flushed, and for a moment made no rejoinder. Then,
shifting his ground, he said bitterly: "I think you're forgetting that
I've had a disillusionizing experience in this sort of thing which you
were spared. You forget that Sylvia is closely related to my sister."

"I don't forget that--but I don't forget e