“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.” There was a long pause, while the other weighed this utterance. “Sylvia,” she said, at last, “he has a great deal of money.” “I have heard that fact mentioned,” responded the girl. “But have you realized, my dear, how _much_ money he has?” To which Sylvia answered, “We are not taught to think so deliberately about money in the South.” Again there was a silence. She divined that Mrs. Winthrop was struggling desperately to be noble. “Do I understand you to mean, Sylvia, that you would really refuse to marry him if he asked you?” “I most certainly mean it,” was her reply—and it was given convincingly. The other drew a breath of relief. She had found the struggle exhausting. “My dear child,” she said, “I appreciate your fineness of character.” She paused. “But tell me this—if you do not intend to marry Douglas, ought you to permit him to compromise himself for you?” “Compromise himself, Mrs. Winthrop? I don’t understand you.” “I mean, Sylvia, that he is exposing himself to the ridicule of his friends—he is making a spectacle of himself to the whole University. And then, after he has done this, you propose to cap the climax of his humiliation by refusing to marry him!”