The atmosphere was surcharged with bitterness. Mrs. Ward gave a sidelong glance of pain, deprecating such a contretemps.
"And I'm going to try to save him," Marriott was forging on.
"Well," said Eades, looking down on his large oval polished nails, and speaking in a tone that would finally dispose of the problem, "for my part, I revere the law and I want to see it enforced."
"Exactly!" Modderwell agreed. "And if there were fewer delays in bringing these criminals to justice, there would be fewer lynchings and more respect for the law."
Marriott did not even try to conceal the disgust with which he received this hackneyed and conventional formula of thoughtless respectability. He felt that it was useless to argue with Eades or Modderwell; it seemed to him that they had never thought seriously of such questions, and would not do so, but that they were merely echoing speeches they had heard all their lives, inherited speeches that had been in vogue for generations, ages, one might say.
"I am sure it must be a most disagreeable task," Mrs. Ward was saying, looking at her daughter in the hope that Elizabeth might relieve a situation with which she felt herself powerless to deal. Marriott seemed always to be introducing such topics, and she had the distaste of her class for the real vital questions of life. But Elizabeth was speaking.
"I'm sure that Gordon's task isn't more disagreeable than mine."
"Yours?" Mrs. Ward turned toward her daughter, dreading things even worse now.
"Yes," replied Elizabeth, looking about in pleasure at the surprise she had created.
"Why, what problem have you?" asked Modderwell.