human
But you mustn't think I'm absolutely hidebound, she went on.
gpt
I can think--and act--for myself.
human
I'm glad of it. Is Maxon?
gpt
Why are we to talk of Cyril when I've just begun my holiday? Yet there was nothing else that she really wanted to talk about. Oh, that stupid promise! Of course she ought to have reserved the right to lay the case before her friends. But a promise is a promise, however stupid. That certainly would be Cyril's view; and it was hers. Was it, she wondered, the Shaylor's Patch view? Or might a question of ethics like that be to some extent
human
He thinks me an awful reprobate?
gpt
So they do down here, but my friends in London call me a very mild specimen. I expect some of them will turn up while you're here, and you'll be able to see for yourself.
human
You don't mind being thought a reprobate down here?
gpt
Why should I? I don't want their society, any more than they want mine. I'm quite well off, and I've no ambitions. He laughed.
human
I'm ideally placed for defying the world, if I want to. It really needs no courage at all, and would bring me no martyr's crown.
gpt
You mean it would be different if you had to work for your living?
human
Might be--or if I wanted to go in for public life, or anything of that kind.
gpt
Or if you were a woman?
human
Well, if I were a woman who was sensitive about what society at large thought of her. That's one of the reasons why I don't preach my views much. It's all very well for me, but my converts, if any, might end by thinking they were paying too dear, while the prophet got off for nothing.