Burned Bridges

"Do you want to?" he pursued the inquiry in a detached, impersonal tone.

"I don't know," she repeated soberly. "I like Tommy a lot. When I'm with

him I feel sure I'd be perfectly happy to be always with him. When I'm

away from him, I'm not so sure."

"In other words," Carr observed slowly, "your reason and your emotions

are not in harmony on that subject. Eh? So far as Tommy Ashe goes, your

mind and your body pull you two different ways."

She looked at him a little more keenly.

"Perhaps," she said. "I know what you mean. But I don't clearly see why

it should be so. Either I love Tommy Ashe, or I don't, and I should know

which, shouldn't I? The first and most violent manifestation of love is

mostly physical, isn't it? I've always understood that. You've pointed

it out. I do like Tommy. Why should my mind act as a brake on my

feelings?"

"Because you happen to be made the way you are," Carr returned

thoughtfully. "As I've told you a good many times, you've grown up a

good deal different from the common run of girls. We've been isolated.

Lacking the time-occupying distractions and pleasures of youth in a more

liberal environment, Sophie, you've been thrown back on yourself and me

and books, and as a result you've cultivated a natural tendency to

think. Most young women don't. They're seldom taught any rational

process of arriving at conclusions. You have developed that faculty. It

has been my pride and pleasure to cultivate in you what I believed to be

a decided mentality. I've tried to show you how to get down to

fundamentals, to work out a philosophy of life that's really workable.

Knowledge is worth having for its own sake. Once you find yourself in

contact with the world--and for you that time is bound to come--you'll

apply all the knowledge you've absorbed to problems as they arise. If

there's a rational solution to any situation that faces you, you'll make

an effort to find that solution. You'll do it almost instinctively. You

can't help it. Your brain is too alert ever to let you act blindly. At

the present your lack of experience probably handicaps you a little. In

human relations you have nothing much but theory, got from the books

you've digested and the way we've always discussed every possible angle

of life. Take Tommy Ashe. He's practically the first young, attractive

white man you've ever met, the very first possibility as a lover.

Tommy's a nice boy, a pleasant, sunny-natured young fellow. Personally

he's just the sort of fellow that would sweep a simple country girl

clean off her feet. With you, your mind, as you just put it, acts as a

brake on your feelings. Can't you guess why?"