With views neither narrow nor illiberal, as views in
society go, she judged everything now as people of public position
must--discussion, of course, but no alteration in one's way of living.
Speculation and ideas did not affect social usage. The countless
movements in which she and her friends were interested for the
emancipation and benefit of others were, in fact, only channels for
letting off her superfluous goodwill, conduit-pipes, for the directing
spirit bred in her. She thought and acted in terms of the public good,
regulated by what people of position said at luncheon and dinner. And it
was surely not her fault that such people must lunch and dine. When her
son had bent and kissed her, she held up the book to him and said:
"Well, Bryan, I think this man's book disgraceful; he simply runs his
sex-idea to death. Really, we aren't all quite so obsessed as that. I do
think he ought to be put in his own lunatic asylum."
Summerhay, looking down at her gloomily, answered:
"I've got bad news for you, Mother."
Lady Summerhay closed the book and searched his face with apprehension.
She knew that expression. She knew that poise of his head, as if butting
at something. He looked like that when he came to her in gambling
scrapes. Was this another? Bryan had always been a pickle. His next
words took her breath away.
"The people at Mildenham, Major Winton and his daughter--you know.
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