On the driver's seat were Jack and Sylvia, the latter a little silent. Though she had made no protest against her companion's rather high-handed disposition of herself it had not wholly pleased Sylvia. For one thing, she thought it assumed too much on the basis of that half promise of last night. She did not desire that Phil or indeed any of the party should infer that she and Jack must necessarily pair off like a couple of Noah's ark animals; moreover she considered it extremely thoughtless, not to say selfish, of Jack to leave Phil to the society of a group of almost strangers when his time in Greendale was so limited; for Phil was taking the midnight train back to New York having allowed himself little more than twenty-four hours for a holiday.
"Too bad everybody has to go away," Jack was saying. "May I come over often and help cheer your lonely hours?" His voice was lowered and his head bent toward Sylvia in an intimate fashion.
"No." The negative was sufficiently decisive to make the driver send a sharp glance at his companion.
"Several why nots. One is because you said last night you were going to work in earnest. You can't do that and keep flying out to Greendale every other day the way you have been doing all summer. Besides, I expect to be busy myself."
"You! May I ask what you are going to do that is so almighty important?"
"You may ask but I am not likely to inform you if you take that tone."
"As all what? Did I sound cross?" Sylvia smiled relentingly. "Well, maybe I was. I hate the lordly male attitude you assume at times. Your tone bristled with it just then."
"Did it?" he chuckled. "Sorry. Honest, I didn't mean to patronize your ladyship. So far from feeling lordly in your presence you usually make me feel infernally infinitesimal, not to say atomic. I have a fearful and wonderful respect for your serene high mightiness. I truly did want to know what you were going to do."
"I am going to get to work on my music for one thing. I've promised to practice with Gus. Then I am going to learn to cook."
"Because I want to, chiefly. Also I think everybody--male and female--ought to know how."
"Thence to dressmaking and millinery, I suppose?"
"Hardly. I haven't the slightest interest in sewing, though I could do it on a pinch I believe. I know I couldn't trim a hat--at least not one I would wear. But cooking is different. I believe I could get up quite a passion for it. Hilda used to. She claimed it was just as much an art to create a perfect salad as to write a sonnet."