"I really asked you to sit here for quite a selfish reason," she said.
"I want to know the meanings of some words that have just cropped up.
You look as if you know."
The young man coughed and looked pleased.
"I am a schoolmaster," he remarked. "Probably I can--"
"Inhibition?" she interrupted.
"Inhibition?" he said. "That means 'holding back.' Latin '_habeo_, I
have' or 'I hold' and 'in--"
"Women have no inhibitions," she repeated; "no power of holding back."
She frowned, and decided to return to that later. "Now
philoprogenitive," she said turning to him. He stared at her, coughed
again and held out his hand for the book.
"That's rather a difficult book for a girl to be reading, isn't it?" he
said, glancing at the title page. "Oh, Kraill the biologist? Whatever
makes you read that? I thought girls read Mrs. Barclay and Charles
Garvice."
"I have not read any of their books yet," she said. "I read this book
some time ago, and it seemed to me to hold the whole illumination of
life. But since I've been on this ship I've been in a muddle about
things. People are not a bit like I thought they would be. I was awake
hours last night trying to get right about it."
"They're not a very nice collection here--in the steerage. But
the difference in fare between steerage and second is very
considerable--very considerable," he sighed.
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