“Why not?” Mr. Gustard repeated. “Why because every one would get pestered to death. It’s the same with stray dogs. Stray dogs have got to have a home. If they haven’t a home of their own, they’re taken to the Dogs’ Home at Battersea and cremated, which is a painless and mercenary death.”
“I don’t call that much of a home,” Sylvia scoffed. “A place where you’re killed.”
“That’s because we’re speaking of dogs. Of course, if the police started in cremating children, there’d be a regular outcry. So the law insists on children having homes.”
Sylvia tried hard to convince Mr. Gustard that she was different from other children, and in any case no longer a child; but though the discussion lasted a long time he would not admit the logic of Sylvia’s arguments; in the end she decided he did not know what he was talking about.
Monkley so much disliked Sylvia’s intimacy with Arthur that he began to talk of moving from Hampstead, whereupon she warned him that if he tried to go away without paying the rent she would make a point of letting Mr. Gustard know where they had gone.
“It strikes me,” Monkley said, and when he spoke, Sylvia was reminded of the tone he used when she had protested against his treatment of Maudie Tilt—“it strikes me that since I’ve been away you’ve taken things a bit too much into your own hands. That’s a trick you’d better drop with me, or we shall quarrel.”
Sylvia braced herself to withstand him as she had withstood him before; but she could not help feeling a little apprehensive, so cold were his green eyes, so thin his mouth.
“I don’t care if we quarrel or not,” she declared. “Because if we quarreled it would mean that I couldn’t bear you near me any longer and that I was glad to quarrel. If you make me hate you, Jimmy, you may be sorry, but I shall never be sorry. If you make me hate you, Jimmy, you can’t think how dreadfully much I shall hate you.”
“Don’t try to come the little actress over me,” Monkley said. “I’ve known too many women in my life to be bounced by a kid like you. But that’s enough. I can’t think why I pay so much attention to you.”
“No,” Sylvia said. “All the women you’ve known don’t seem to have been able to teach you how to manage a little girl like me. What a pity!”