Who is this girl?
In what description of business is she actually engaged ?" The young fellow's face grew red: "She _was_ engaged in--the drama." "What!" "She was an actress," he said, realising now the utter absurdity of any hope from the beginning, yet now committed and determined to see it through to the bitter end.
"An actress! Louis!" faltered his mother.
There was a silence, cut like a knife by the thin edge of his father's voice: "If she _was_ an actress, what is she now ?" "She has helped me with my painting." "Helped you?
How ?" "By--posing." "Do you desire me to understand that the girl is an artist's model!" "Yes." His father stared at him a moment, then: "And is this the woman you propose to have your mother meet ?" "Father," he said, hopelessly, "there is no use in my saying anything more.

Miss West is a sweet, good, generous young girl, fully my peer in education, my superior in many things....

You and mother can never believe that the ideas, standards--even the ideals of civilisation change--have changed since your youth--are changing every hour.

In your youth the word actress had a dubious significance; to-day it signifies only what the character of her who wears the title signifies.

In your youth it was immodest, unmaidenly, reprehensible, for a woman to be anything except timid, easily abashed, ignorant of vital truths, and submissive to every social convention; to-day women are neither ignorant nor timid; they are innocent because they choose to be; they are fearless, intelligent, ambitious, and self-reliant--and lose nothing in feminine charm by daring to be themselves instead of admitting their fitness only for the seraglio of some Occidental monogamist--" "Louis! Your mother is present!" "Good heavens, father, I know it! Isn't it possible even for a man's own mother to hear a little truth once in a while--" His father rose in pallid wrath: "Be silent!" he said, unsteadily; "the subject is definitely ended." * * * * * It was ended.