“While there are certainly some irksome aspects to school,” he conceded after a moment, “I think you will find to your eventual delight that the experience has broadened your horizons.”

Nina looked up.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean by what?”

“By broadened your horizons.”

“By broadening your horizons,” he ventured, “what I meant is that education will give you a sense of the world’s scope, of its wonders, of its many and varied ways of life.”

“Wouldn’t travel achieve that more effectively?”

“Travel?”

“We are talking about horizons, aren’t we? That horizontal line at the limit of sight? Rather than sitting in orderly rows in a schoolhouse, wouldn’t one be better served by working her way toward an actual horizon, so that she could see what lay beyond it? That’s what Marco Polo did when he traveled to China. And what Columbus did when he traveled to America. And what Peter the Great did when he traveled through Europe incognito!”