Sometimes when he inveighed against her past associates and what he called her unhappy bringing up, she felt impelled to defend them.
“You see, you have all you want, Philip.”
Sylvia had learned with considerable difficulty to call him Philip; she could never get rid of the idea that he was much older than herself and that people who heard her call him by his Christian name would laugh. Even now she could only call him Philip when the importance of the remark was enough to hide what still seemed an unpardonable kind of pertness.
“You think I have all I want, do you?” he answered, a little bitterly. “My dear child, I’m in the most humiliating position in which a man can find himself. There is only one thing I want, but I’m afraid to make the effort to secure it: I’m afraid of being laughed at. Sylvia dear, you were wiser than you knew when you objected to calling me Philip for that very reason. I wish I could spread my canvas to a soldier’s wind like you and sail into life, but I can’t. I’ve been taught to tack, and I’ve never learned how to reach harbor. I suppose some people, in spite of our system of education, succeed in learning,” he sighed.
“I don’t understand a bit what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Don’t you? It doesn’t matter. I was really talking to myself, which is very rude. Impose a penalty.”
“Admit you have everything you want,” Sylvia insisted. “And don’t be always running down poor Jimmy and my father and every one I’ve ever known.”
“From their point of view I confess I have everything I want,” he agreed.
On another occasion Sylvia asked him if he did not think she ought to consider religion more than she had done. Being so much in Philip’s company was giving her a desire to experiment with the habits of well-regulated people, and she was perplexed to find that he paid no attention to church-going.
“Ah, there you can congratulate yourself,” he said, emphatically. “Whatever was deplorable in your bringing up, at least you escaped that damnable imposition, that fraudulent attempt to flatter man beyond his deserts.”