"Do try to argue fair, even if you are a woman. You're as cautious in
your way as I am in mine."

Adelaide felt that he was offended, and justly. "I didn't mean quite what
I said, Artie. You _are_ cautious, in a way, and sometimes. But often
you're reckless. I'm frightened every once in a while by it, and I'm
haunted by the dread that there'll be a collision between father and you.
You're so much alike, and you understand each other less and less, all
the time."

After a silence Arthur said, thoughtfully: "I think I understand him.
There are two distinct persons inside of me. There's the one that was
made by inheritance and by my surroundings as a boy--the one that's like
him, the one that enables me to understand him. Then, there's this other
that's been made since--in the East, and going round among people that
either never knew the sort of life we had as children or have grown away
from it. The problem is how to reconcile those two persons so that
they'll stop wrangling and shaming each other. That's _my_ problem, I
mean. Father's problem--He doesn't know he has one. I must do as he
wishes or I'll not be at all, so far as he is concerned."

Another and longer silence; then Adelaide, after an uneasy, affectionate
look at his serious profile, said: "I'm often ashamed of myself,
Artie--about father; I don't _think_ I'm a hypocrite, for I do love him
dearly. Who could help it, when he is so indulgent and when even in his
anger he's kind? But you--Oh, Artie, even though you are less, much less,
uncandid with him than I am, still isn't it more--more--less manly in
you? After all, I'm a woman and helpless; and, if I seriously offend him,
what would become of me? But you're a man. The world was made for men;
they can make their own way. And it seems unworthy of you to be afraid to