“But that is not what I want. You can’t help seeing him—he is determined to see you. My point is that your advice to him should take another form—you should realize the peculiar position of a man like Douglas, the immense responsibilities he carries, and which he cannot lay aside. If you could sympathize with him——”
There was again a pause. “I hope you won’t think it obstinate of me,” said the girl, “but I know that I could never change my attitude—that unless Mr. van Tuiver changed his way of life, he could never be a friend of mine.”
“But, Sylvia dear,” remonstrated the other, gently, “he has been a friend of mine.”
And so the real battle was on. There have been defences of the Divine Right of Kings, composed by eminent and learned men; there have been treatises composed upon the upbringing of statesmen and princes—from Machiavelli and Castiglione on; Sylvia was ignorant of their very existence, and so she was in no way a match for a scholarly person like Mrs. Winthrop. But one thing she knew, and knew it with overwhelming certainty, and repeated it with immovable obstinacy—she did not like van Tuiver as he was, she could not tolerate him as he was. Mrs. Winthrop argued and pleaded, apologized and philosophized, interpreting most eloquently the privileges and immunities incidental to the possession of fifty millions of dollars. But Sylvia did not like van Tuiver, she could not tolerate van Tuiver.
At last Mrs. Winthrop stopped, the edges of her temper somewhat frayed. She gazed at Sylvia intently. “May I ask you one thing?” she said.
“What is it?” inquired the girl.
“Has Douglas asked you to marry him?”
“No, he has not.”
“Do you think that he will ask you?”
“I really don’t know; but I can assure you that he will not if I can prevent it.”