a success. Dont you listen to this, Patsy: it might make you
conceited. Shes never been treated like a child. I always said the
same thing to her mother. Let her read what she likes. Let her do
what she likes. Let her go where she likes. Eh, Patsy?

HYPATIA. Oh yes, if there had only been anything for me to do, any
place for me to go, anything I wanted to read.

TARLETON. There, you see! Shes not satisfied. Restless. Wants
things to happen. Wants adventures to drop out of the sky.

HYPATIA. _[gathering up her work]_ If youre going to talk about me
and my education, I'm off.

TARLETON. Well, well, off with you. _[To Lord Summerhays]_ Shes
active, like me. She actually wanted me to put her into the shop.

HYPATIA. Well, they tell me that the girls there have adventures
sometimes. _[She goes out through the inner door]_

TARLETON. She had me there, though she doesnt know it, poor innocent
lamb! Public scandal exaggerates enormously, of course; but moralize
as you will, superabundant vitality is a physical fact that cant be
talked away. _[He sits down between the writing table and the
sideboard]._ Difficult question this, of bringing up children.
Between ourselves, it has beaten me. I never was so surprised in my
life as when I came to know Johnny as a man of business and found out
what he was really like. How did you manage with your sons?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, I really hadnt time to be a father: thats the