A little research

You're nearly at Dr. Blake's room and you really can't understand why Tilly won't follow advice, so you decide to fall back on a tactic that has always served you well in your academic career. You knock on the door and when instructed to come in, open it wide and announce your companion. Sharon beams with feigned surprise and ushers you both in, eager to see her former student again. After exchanging greetings, you excuse yourself, saying you'll give them a chance to reconnect.

Once outside, you put in a call to Tilly's workplace. Fortunately, you already have the details thanks to your past correspondence with her parents, including the private line to her department. It turns out her boss is rather busy (perhaps because his best employee has the day off), but you get into a conversation with the woman who picked up while you wait and discover the first person who supports young Miss Duffy's decision to defer her promotion.

"…oh, there's no way a girl of spankable age could run a department. She'd have no authority. Not among the men."

"Surely a management position would give her the authority," you reply, echoing the arguments her parents have been trying on the girl herself, with no success.

"In theory, but a young woman needs guidance from older men, so effectively, the employees would be in charge. That might or might not be good for the company, but there's no way head office would tolerate it." From her tone, it sounds like she thinks it would be very good for the company to be led by the grass roots rather than the executives, but as a low level employee herself, she perhaps doesn't see the bigger picture, just as the men don't either. You realize that even though older men always have a girl's best interests at heart when advising her (as required by your rules), that doesn't mean they necessarily know best. A division at the heart of the company might make it actually impossible for Tilly to do the job she was offered, even if she accepted it.

You hadn't really thought about what happens when young ladies receive conflicting advice from their elders. Thanking the woman on the end of the line, you tell her you no longer need to speak to her boss and apologize for taking up so much of her tea break, but she says it was her pleasure to have a chat. Either that's true or she's a good actress. Anyway, you now have a clearer idea what you need to do.