"You think I have all I want, do you?" he answered, a little bitterly. "My dear child, I'm in the most humiliating position in which a man can find himself. There is only one thing I want, but I'm afraid to make the effort to secure it: I'm afraid of being laughed at. Sylvia dear, you were wiser than you knew when you objected to calling me Philip for that very reason. I wish I could spread my canvas to a soldier's wind like you and sail into life, but I can't. I've been taught to tack, and I've never learned how to reach harbor. I suppose some people, in spite of our system of education, succeed in learning," he sighed. "I don't understand a bit what you're talking about," she said. "Don't you? It doesn't matter. I was really talking to myself, which is very rude. Impose a penalty." "Admit you have everything you want," Sylvia insisted. "And don't be always running down poor Jimmy and my father and every one I've ever known." "From their point of view I confess I have everything I want," he agreed. On another occasion Sylvia asked him if he did not think she ought to consider religion more than she had done. Being so much in Philip's company was giving her a desire to experiment with the habits of well-regulated people, and she was perplexed to find that he paid no attention to church-going. "Ah, there you can congratulate yourself," he said, emphatically. "Whatever was deplorable in your bringing up, at least you escaped that damnable imposition, that fraudulent attempt to flatter man beyond his deserts." "Oh, don't use so many long words all at once," Sylvia begged. "I like a long word now and then, because I'm collecting long words, but I can't collect them and understand what you're talking about at the same time. Do you think I ought to go to church?" "No, no, a thousand times no," Philip replied. "You've luckily escaped from religion as a social observance. Do you feel the need for it? Have you ineffable longings?" "I know that word," Sylvia said. "It means something that can't be said in words, doesn't it? Well, I've often had longings like that, especially in Hampstead, but no longings that had anything to do with going to church. How could they have, if they were ineffable?" "Quite true," Philip agreed. "And therefore be grateful that you're a pagan. If ever a confounded priest gets hold of you and tries to bewitch you with his mumbo-jumbo, send for me and I'll settle him. No, no, going to church of one's own free will is either a drug (sometimes a stimulant, sometimes a narcotic) or it's mere snobbery. In either case it is a futile waste of time, because there are so many problems in this world--you're one of the most urgent--that it's criminal to avoid their solution by speculating upon the problem of the next world, which is insoluble." "But is there another world?" she asked. "I don't think so." "And all those announcements in the cemetery meant nothing?"