“
Except for my net, everything I have need of in the world is contained in that bag—including a second hat and a rather sizable jar of cold cream of roses. Do not tell me you couldn’t travel with as little. I have faith that men can be as reasonable and logical as women if they but try.” He shook his head. “I cannot seem to formulate a clear thought in the face of such original thinking, Miss Speedwell. You have a high opinion of your sex.” I pursed my lips. “Not all of it. We are, as a gender, undereducated and infantilized to the point of idiocy. But those of us who have been given the benefit of learning and useful occupation, well, we are proof that the traditional notions of feminine delicacy and helplessness are the purest poppycock.”
“You have large opinions for so small a person.”
“I daresay they would be large opinions even for someone your size,” I countered.
“And where did you form these opinions? Either your school was inordinately progressive or your governess was a Radical.”
“I never went to school, nor did I have a governess. Books were my tutors, Mr. Stoker. Anything I wished to learn I taught myself.”
“There are limits to an autodidactic education,” he pointed out.
“Few that I have found. I was spared the prejudices of formal educators."
“And neither were you inspired by them. A good teacher can change the course of a life,” he said thoughtfully.
“Perhaps. But I had complete intellectual freedom. I studied those subjects which interested me—to the point of obsession at times—and spent precious little time on things which did not.”
“Such as?”
“Music and needlework. I am astonishingly lacking in traditional feminine accomplishments.”
He cocked his head. “I am not entirely astonished.” But his tone was mild, and I accepted the statement as nothing like an insult. In fact, it felt akin to a compliment. “And I must confess that between Jane Austen and Fordyce’s Sermons, I have developed a general antipathy for clergymen. And their wives,” I added, thinking of Mrs. Clutterthorpe. “Well, in that we may be agreed. Tell me, do you find many people to share your views?”
“Shockingly few,” I admitted.
”
”