“What’s that?” cried Primrose, coming up as he spoke. “A revolution?”
“Yes, guillotines and all, to cut off your head in Rotherwood Park,” said Gerald lightly.
“Oh! you don’t really mean it.”
“Not that sort,” said Dolores. “Only the coming of the coquecigrues.”
“They are in ‘The Water Babies’,” said Primrose, mystified.
Each of those two liked to talk to the other as a sort of fellow-captive, solacing themselves with discussions over the ‘Censor’ and its fellows. Love is not often the first thought, even where it lurks in modern intellectual intercourse between man and maid; and though Kitty Varley might giggle, the others thought the idea only worthy of her. Aunt Jane, however, smelt out the notion, and could not but communicate it to her sister, though adding—
“I don’t believe in it: Dolores is in love with Physiology, and the boy with what Jasper calls Socialist maggots, but not with each other, unless they work round in some queer fashion.”
However, Lady Merrifield, feeling herself accountable for Dolores, was anxious to gather ideas about Gerald from his aunt, with whom she was becoming more and more intimate. She was more than twenty years the senior, and the thread of connection was very slender, but they suited one another so well that they had become Lilias and Geraldine to one another. Lady Merrifield had preserved her youthfulness chiefly from having had a happy home, unbroken by family sorrows or carking cares, and with a husband who had always taken his full share of responsibility.
“Your nephew’s production has made a stir,” said she, when they found themselves alone together.
“Yes, poor boy.” Then answering the tone rather than the words, “I suppose it is the lot of one generation to be startled by the next. There is a good deal of change in the outlook.”