Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "Dear little
ignorant Sylvia--you don't recognize life when you see it. That's the
way men are--all men--and there's no use thinking it horrid unless
you're going into a convent. It's not so bad either,--once you get the
hang of managing it--it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any other
force of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to your
account and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try to
quarrel with water for running downhill. As long as she herself isn't
carried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Only
the stupid women get hurt by it--the silly ones who can't keep their
heads. And after all, my dear, it _is_ a force of nature--and you're
too intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that.
It's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it--and doesn't do any
good besides!" She looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubled
face, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "_Good_-bye,
darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder.

Sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead. Her food had
no savor to her. She did not know what she was eating, nor what her
mother, the only one at home for lunch, was saying to her. As a matter
of fact Mrs. Marshall said very little, even less than was her custom.
Her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had worn
during the time when Lawrence had had pneumonia, and his life had hung
in the balance for two days; but she went quietly about her usual
household tasks.

After the meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table,
staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper's
illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire
system like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingenious
lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had
failed in the one point which seemed to her important, the possibility
of a reconciliation between Sylvia and Jermain. The girl was deeply
under the impression made by the philosophy of the older woman; she
did not for the moment dream of denying its truth; but she stood
granite in a perfectly illogical denial of its implications in her own
case. She did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that she
renew her relations to Jerry Fiske, because with a united action of
all her faculties she refused utterly to consider it