Sometimes in growth the mental strides into life ahead of the physical; sometimes it is the other way.

At seventeen Jerome's mind took the lead of his body, and the imaginations thereof, though he was well grown and well favored, and young girls placed themselves innocently in his way and looked back for him to follow.
Jerome's cold, bright glances met theirs, full of the artless appeal of love and passion, shameless because as yet unrecognized, and then he turned away with disdain.
"I came here to learn Latin and higher algebra, not to fool with a pack of girls," he told the school-master, bluntly.

The young man laughed and colored.

He was honest and good; passion played over him like wildfire, not with any heat for injury, but with a dazzle to blind and charm.
He did not intend to marry until he had well established himself in life, and would not; but in the meantime he gave his resolution as loose a rein as possible, and conjugated _amo_ with shades of meaning with every girl in the class.
"I don't see what I can do, Edwards," he said.

"I cannot turn the girls out, and I could not refuse them an equal privilege with you, when they asked it." Jerome gave the school-master a look of such entire comprehension and consequent scorn that he fairly cast down his eyes before him; then he went out with his books under his arm.
He paid for his few lessons with the first money he could save, in spite of the school-master's remonstrances.
After that Jerome went on doggedly with his studies by himself, and asked assistance from nobody.