The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia ScarlettMacKenzie, Compton
General
The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett
MacKenzie, Compton
Fiction
The next day happened to be Sunday, and Philip came as usual to take
Sylvia out. He had sent her the evening before an overcoat trimmed with
gray squirrel, which, if it had not arrived after Miss Lee's departure,
would have been so much more joyfully welcomed. Philip asked her why she
was so sad and if the coat did not please her. She told him about its
coming after Miss Lee had gone, and, as usual, he had a lot to say:
"You strange child, how quickly you have adopted the outlook and manners
of the English school-girl. One would say that you had never been
anything else. How absurd I was to be afraid that you were a wild bird
whom I had caught too late. I'm quite positive now that you'll be happy
with me down in Hampshire. I'm sorry you've lost Miss Lee. A charming
woman, I thought, and very cultivated. Miss Ashley will miss her
greatly, but she herself will be glad to get away from music-teaching.
It must be an atrocious existence."
Here was a new point of view altogether. Could it really be possible
that those delicious hours with Miss Lee were a penance to the mistress?
Sylvia looked at Philip angrily, for she found it unforgivable in him to
destroy her illusions like this. He did not observe her expression and
continued his monologue:
"Really atrocious. Exercises! Scales! Other people's chilblains! A
creaking piano-stool! What a purgatory! And all to teach a number of
young women to inflict an objectionable noise upon their friends and
relations."
"Thanks," Sylvia broke in. "You won't catch me playing again."
"I'm not talking about you," Philip said. "You have temperament. You're
different from the ordinary school-girl." He took her arm
affectionately. "You're you, dear Sylvia."
"And yours," she added, sullenly. "I thought you said just now that I
was just like any other English school-girl and that you were so happy
about it."
"I said you'd wonderfully adopted the outlook," Philip corrected. "Not
quite the same thing."
"Oh, well, take your horrible coat, because I don't want it," Sylvia
exclaimed, and, rapidly unbuttoning her new overcoat, she flung it on
the pavement at his feet.
Nobody was in sight at the moment, so Philip did not get angry.
"Now don't tell me it's illogical to throw away only the coat and not
undress myself completely. I know quite well that everything I've got on
is yours."
"Oh no, it's not," Philip said, gently. "It's yours."
"But you paid for everything."
"No, you paid yourself," he insisted.
"How?"
"By being Sylvia. Come along, don't trample on your poor coat. There's a
most detestable wind blowing."
He picked up the offending overcoat and helped her into it again with so
much sympathy half humorous, half grave in his demeanor that she could
not help being sorry for her outburst.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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