But it is possible that I may never see my daughter again and--I am speaking to her"; and he went back to the old vexed question.
"It's not only that you are born with qualities, definite characteristics, definite cravings, for which you are no more responsible than the man in the moon, and which are part of you.

But there's something else.

How much of your character, how much of all your life to come is decided for you during the first ten or fifteen years of your life--decided for you, mind, not by you?
Upon my soul, I think the whole of it.

You don't agree?
Well, it's an open question.

I believe that at the age of fifteen the lines along which you will move are already drawn, your character formed, your conduct for the future a settled thing." To that Sylvia gave no assent.