Another person that was pained by Sylvia’s exuberance was Maria, her black cat, so called on account of his color before he was definitely established as a gentleman. He had no ear for music and he disapproved of dancing; nor did he have the least sympathy with the aspirations of the lawless song she sang. Mrs. Gustard considered that he was more artful than what any one would think, but she repudiated as “heathenish” Sylvia’s contention that she outwardly resembled Maria.
“Still I do think I’m like a cat,” Sylvia argued. “Perhaps not very like a black cat, more like a tabby. One day you’ll come up to my room and find me purring on the bed.”
Mrs. Gustard exclaimed against such an unnatural event.
Sylvia received one or two letters from Jimmy Monkley during the winter, in which he wrote with considerable optimism of the success of his venture and thought he might be back in Hampstead by February. He came back unexpectedly, however, in the middle of January, and Sylvia was only rather glad to see him; she had grown fond of her life alone and dreaded Jimmy’s habit of arranging matters over her head. He was not so amiable as formerly, because the scheme had only been partially successful and he had failed to make enough money to bring the flash gambling-hell perceptibly nearer. Sylvia had almost forgotten that project; it seemed to her now a dull project, neither worthy of herself nor of him. She did not attempt, on Jimmy’s return, to change her own way of spending the time, and she persisted in taking the long walks with Arthur as usual.
“What the devil you see to admire in that long-legged, saucer-eyed, curly-headed mother’s pet I don’t know,” Jimmy grumbled.
“I don’t admire him,” Sylvia said. “I don’t admire anybody except Joan of Arc. But I like him.”
Jimmy scowled; and later on that day Mr. Gustard warned Sylvia that her uncle (as such was Jimmy known in the lodgings) had carried on alarmingly about her friendship with young Artie.
“It’s nothing to do with him,” Sylvia affirmed, with out-thrust chin.
“Nothing whatever,” Mr. Gustard agreed. “But if I was you I wouldn’t throw young Artie in his face. I’ve never had a niece myself, but from what I can make out an uncle feels something like a father; and a father gets very worried about his rights.”
“But you’ve never had any children, and so you can’t know any more about the feelings of a father,” Sylvia objected.