"You could not know--"
"Oh, it's not that! It's that I hadn't a single courageous word to
say to him--not a hint that he ought to refuse to wring blood-money
from sweat-shops! I came away without having done it, because I
couldn't face his anger, because it would have meant a quarrel!"
"My dear," I said gently, "it is possible to survive a quarrel."
"No, you don't understand! We should never make it up again, I
know--I saw it in his words, in his face. He will never change to
please me, no, not even a simple thing like the business-methods of
the van Tuiver estates."
I could not help smiling. "My dear Sylvia! A simple thing!"
She came and sat beside me. "That's what I want to talk about. It is
time I was growing up. It it time that I knew about these things.
Tell me about them."
"What, my dear?"
"About the methods of the van Tuiver estates, that can't be changed
to please me. I made out one thing, we had recently paid a fine for
some infraction of the law in one of those buildings, and my husband
said it was because we had refused to pay more money to a
tenement-house inspector. I asked him: 'Why should we pay any money
at all to a tenement-house inspector? Isn't it bribery?' He
answered: 'It's a custom--the same as you give a tip to a hotel
waiter.
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