"You are, my dear," he said. "And also that adorable female relative of mine always rouses my indignation. Shades of my ancestors, what a tongue! How she would yarn to the boy if she ever got hold of him alone."
"That is what I've been thinking," Katharine said, turning to him earnestly. "It would be too cruel."
"But why should you mind?" he said. "After all, they are nothing to you—just strangers—that's all. Can't let yourself be torn in pieces for strangers. Better do it for me instead. My word, Kath, but you did speak up for him well."
"Did I?" she asked, with a sudden thrill in her voice.
Willy Tonedale glanced at her and saw a light on her face which had never shone for him—never.
And the cold crept into his faithful heart.
[CHAPTER X.]
Mrs Stanhope went on her way home fiercely indignant with this stranger who had dared to defend Clifford Thornton. In her own unreasoning anger she felt doubly fierce towards him for daring to have a defender. She had loved Marianne always, and she had disliked him always. She was of limited understanding—like all bigots. She knew nothing, and wished to know nothing about his side of the case. All she knew was that he had made her poor Marianne miserable, and had brought about her death. All she hoped now was that he might be miserable himself, for ever and ever. In memory of her dear, dead friend, she determined that her hand should always be against him. It was a simple creed, and therefore primitive and strong, like all primitive instincts. She knew even less than Marianne about sensitive brains, delicate nervous organisms, and the surcharged world of thought and imagination. When she spoke about temperament, it was as though a blacksmith were working at a goldsmith's goblet: as though a ropemaker were working at a spider's web. She honestly believed that Marianne had been sacrificed to him. She could not realise that Marianne was made of coarser fibre than Clifford Thornton. She knew nothing about Marianne's birth, antecedents, and environment. She was quite unequipped with delicate understanding of human nature to judge between any two people—much less two married people—that unfathomable twin-mystery. But she did judge, and she condemned him without any reservations. And she thought of Marianne's son, and resolved in her own mind that he, too, should judge his father and condemn him.
"It is only right," she said to herself repeatedly, "that the boy should know, and should carry in his mind a tender memory of his mother. His father will tell him only cruel things about her. She shall not have that injustice done to her."
She did not take into account the tenderness of Alan's years; she had no instincts of mercy and pity for his young thoughts, and his young birthright of forgetfulness. She did not stop to imagine that Marianne herself would have wished him to be spared. It never entered her mind that Marianne herself would have said: