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 "Is this a good time for me to talk to you?" she asked, considerate as always of other people's leisure.

"Excellent," answered Austin. "Except," he added, with a disarming smile, "I don't suppose I'm going to like what you have to say."

"All the more reason for hearing it," she returned. "Mr. Bevans, the intellectual standards of this school are going down, really they are, and that's hard on those of us who have given the best part of our lives to building them up. I know you think the girls are going to get something to compensate them, but isn't it really something that compensates you—men, I mean? I feel as if there were something profoundly wrong and unjust in a young man having control of the destinies of these girls. One knows what men have always thought women ought to be educated for."

"You think it's like letting the butcher decide on the happiest destiny for lambs?"

She brushed his frivolity aside. "But I didn't really come to speak about the general theory. I want to speak of one girl—of Elise, I have known her since she was a child, and you don't know her at all. I want you to make an exception in her case.