“No, Miss Castleman,” he said, “it’s not all you know!”
But her recklessness was driving her—that spirit of the gambler that was in the blood of all her race. “It is all I know.” She bent over and began strenuously to pluck sprays of golden-rod.
“To break men’s hearts?” he asked.
She laughed scornfully. “I had a great-aunt, Lady Dee—perhaps you’ve heard of her. She taught me—and I’ve found out through much experience that she was right.” She gazed at him boldly, over the armful of flowers. “‘Sylvia, never let yourself be sorry for men. Let them take care of themselves. They have all the advantage in the game. They are free to come and go, they pick us up and look us over and drop us when they feel like it. So we have to learn to manage them. And, believe me, my child, they like it—it’s what they’re made for!’”
“And you believe such things as that?”
She laughed, a superbly cynical laugh, and began to gather more flowers. “I used to think they were cruel—when I was young. But now I know that Aunt Lady was right. What else have men to do but to make love to us? Isn’t it better for them than getting drunk, or gambling, or breaking their necks hunting foxes? ‘It’s the thing that lifts them above the brute,’ she used to say. ‘Naturally, the more of them you lift, the better.’”
“Did she teach you to deceive men deliberately?”
“She told me that when she was ordering her wedding trousseau, she was engaged to a dozen; a cousin of hers was engaged to another dozen, and couldn’t make up her mind which to choose, so she sent notes to them all to say that she’d marry the man who got to her first.”
He smiled—his slow, quiet smile. Sylvia did not know how he was taking these things; nor did his next remark enlighten her. “Did it not surprise you to be taught that men were the centre of creation?”
“No. They taught me that God was a man.”