This was altogether too intimate an inquiry, and the dowager, failing to bury her blushes in the opulent group of butter-colored flowers that she was bending over to admire, took refuge in her bringing-up.
"We were brought up differently in those days," she said. "I don't think that men depended upon their wives to quite the same extent they do now."
"I'm asking you all this," Dorothy explained, "because as far as the future is concerned Tony and I are standing now at crossroads. If I oppose or, even without opposing them, if I fail to share in his pleasures, my attitude won't have any sobering effect. But if I take part with him willingly and enjoy what he enjoys, it may be that I shall have enough influence to prevent his going too far. Frankly, he doesn't seem to have an idea that there may be something else in life besides self-indulgence, the instant and complete self-indulgence that he always allows himself. Money and rank only exist for him because they are useful to that end. The only thing he was ever denied for five minutes of his life was myself, and after a period of active sulking he got me. I suppose you spoiled him, really."
The dowager looked melancholy.
"I'm not reproaching you," said Dorothy. "I quite understand the temptation. That's why I asked if you ever loved your husband. I thought that perhaps you didn't and that you'd had to love Tony much more in consequence. I'm sorry about that son of mine, because I should have liked to prove that it is possible to devote oneself utterly to a son without spoiling him. Meanwhile, I'm afraid it's too late to do anything with Tony. You must forgive me for this attack upon illusions. I shall never make another. I only wanted you to know, because you were kind to me when I first came here, that I've done my best and that there's nothing more to be done."
"But you're so beautiful," said the dowager. "I was never beautiful."
"Oh, so far as keeping him more or less faithful is worth while, I don't suppose I shall have the least difficulty," Dorothy admitted. "But each time I tame him with a kiss I reduce my own self-respect a little bit, and I blunt his respect for me. If I were his mistress, my kisses would be bribes to make him spend money on me; as his wife my kisses are bribes to prevent his spending money on other women. Anyway, this is the last that you or any one else shall ever hear on this rather unpleasant subject. I think these tigridias that Mr. Greenish was so keen to combine with the ixias were a mistake. They are quite faded by the afternoon."
It was now Dorothy's turn to direct the conversation toward flowers, while the dowager endeavored to keep it personal.
"I've often thought," she began, "what a pity it was for you to cut yourself off so completely from your own family."
"I certainly shouldn't find them of any help to me now," said Dorothy.