Pop Mackinnon says, ''because I wanted all the nonsense knocked out of them. A passing appreciation of books and so on, but no more. A boa doesn't actually squeeze anything. It's a procedure, and the law is nothing else if it's not a procedure.
Pop adds, and therein lies the tale.
Pop doesn't know enough about women, and lawyers are vulnerable to whatever they don't know about a client. Finished with college, finished with the war, finishing law school, Chip is engaged to a woman Pop approves of when he meets a solitary runaway from Ohio. Jean Cooper is a young woman who inspires such perilous longing that she has had to flee her hometown, where the menfolk were destroying themselves over her. Although Pop detests Jean for interrupting his plans for Chip, he too desires her, to the point of courting their mutual destruction. Jean's vulnerability to insult is what finally forces her to leave Chip, allowing him to return to his father's path.