Phyllis began at the beginning, and poured forth to Tom all the matters that had distressed her in the Haines household, ending with the conversation of the afternoon, suppressing his part in the theme.
"Well, what do you want me to tell you, Phyllis?" asked Tom. "Surely you don't have to question whether you or a heartless, flirting, worldly woman is right? Or whether any woman worth the name will sell herself for an establishment and clothes?"
"No, not that; right is right, and wrong is wrong—" began Phyllis.
"Always," broke in Tom.
"Yes, I know; but what makes me downright sick is the fear that dear auntie has kept us shut away from a world that is full of this sort of thing—that all the world is like this," cried Phyllis. "Are we different from the rest of the world? These last months have frightened me."
"Not much wonder," said Tom, heartily. "Poor little soul! Now, look here, Phyllis; you're not different from all the world, but you're different from lots of it. The best never gets run out, but it runs low often. You've been given the highest standards in all things, and they can never be common. It is much easier to be bad than good for people who start crooked; you started straight, you and Jessamy and Bab. All you've got to do is to be yourself and not worry. Keep your own ideas, and steer by them, and let the rest go. Do you suppose I don't see heaps and piles of things I hate? More than you ever will, because a fellow runs up against the world as no girl does. I'd like to be able to tell you I see none but sweet, modest, true girls; but, honest, I see fewer of them than the other kind. Girls make me sick, though I feel mean to say it; they wouldn't if I didn't think they are so much better than we are when they are nice. You see, Phyllis, girls don't understand that the whole world is in their hands; we're all what women, young and old, make us. Now, you and I had good mothers and sisters. When I went away my oldest sister—she's past thirty—talked to me. 'Shut your eyes to the bold girls, Tom,' she said, 'and make no woman friend you would not introduce to your sisters. Keep your ideals, and be sure there will always be sweet, wholesome girls to save the world.' So I have been shutting my eyes to the strong-minded sisterhood, and the giddy ones too; and just when I needed you, because I was getting too lonely, the Wyndhams turned up, thank heaven! So you'll find it, Phyl; it's a queer, crooked old world, but there are straight folk in it. Keep your ideals, miss, as my sister told me, and 'gang your ways,' And don't take it so hard that there is wrong and injustice in the world. That's being morbid. You'll get used to it; it's only your first plunge that costs; the world's like the ocean in that. And there's heaps of good lying around, mixed up with bad too, sometimes, and that's what no young person sees at first. You know I am ever so much older than you because I've had my eyes opened longer. Don't you get to thinking it's a bad world; it's a good one. The Lord saw that, and said so, when it was first made. Thus endeth my first lesson. I never talked so much in my life at a stretch. Come into this drug-store for hot coffee; you look fagged."
"You're such a comfort, Tom," said Phyllis. "I feel much better. There was no use in talking to Jessamy or Bab, because we all know no more nor less than one another, but I wanted straightening out. And auntie looks so ill of late, don't you think so?"
Tom looked very serious. "I think she is ill, Phyllis," he said. "There is nothing the matter with her, except one of the worst things: she is exhausted, worn out with fret and trouble. She doesn't get enough nourishment; she needs nursing."
"Oh, I see it, Tom," cried Phyllis, as they left the soda-fountain. "What can I do?"