"It means," said the Professor very gravely, "that, for the present at least, you are to have nothing whatever to do with Irene Ashleigh--nothing whatever to do with her. You understand that, Rosamund. And I give you a week, my dear, to decide. Think over the advantages of this home. Think what it means to your friends, and will eventually mean to yourself, and try to discover that I am wise in my generation, although you doubtless consider me foolish. If at the end of the week you have found out that you cannot really obey me--or, rather, that you will not--I shall have, reluctantly, to write to your mother and ask her to remove you, for the other girls cannot be contaminated with that most fatal of all sins, the sin of direct disobedience."