“I felt that, Sylvia, when I saw you. I said, ‘Here is an ally.’ You see, I must have help from the young people—especially from the girls, if I am to do anything with the men.”
There was a solemn pause. “I hope I haven’t disappointed you too much,” said Sylvia at last.
Mrs. Winthrop fixed upon her one of those intense gazes. “I’ve been perplexed,” she said. “You must understand, I can’t help hearing what’s going on. People come to ask me for advice, and I must give it. And I’ve felt that what I’ve learned made it really necessary for me to talk to you. I hope that you won’t mind, or think that I’m presuming.”
“My dear Mrs. Winthrop,” said Sylvia, “please don’t apologize. I am glad to have your advice.”
“I will speak frankly, then. As well as I can read the situation, you seem to have taken offense at the social system we have at Harvard. Is that true?”
Sylvia thought. “Yes,” she said—“some parts of it have offended me.”
“Can you explain, Sylvia?”
“I don’t know that I can. It’s a thing that one feels. I have had a sense of something cruel about it.”
“Something cruel? But can’t one feel that about any social system? Haven’t you classes at home? Don’t your people hold themselves above some others?”
“Yes, but I don’t think they are so hard about it—so deliberate, so matter of fact.”