“What do women do who have no Galahad?” she said. “I felt so puzzled, so distressed about it all, and you have comforted me. You see so clearly, dear. But people are so strange and unexpected. To think that my brother should have acted Tristan before all London. And to think that Mrs. Owen, who is so nice, and who is so musical, and has such deep feeling, should have stopped to the end, and said she enjoyed it so. Apart from all else, there did not seem to me to be a single tune in the whole opera.”
“Ah! Mrs. Owen,” said Canon Alington suddenly. “She lunches with us to-morrow, does she not?”
“Yes, dear. What then?”
Canon Alington attacked the subject again with renewed briskness.
“We might do worse than consult her,” he said, “before we take any step at all. We cannot expect that everyone should take exactly the same line as we do, and it is possible—I say it is possible—that she may think that a certain historical interest that attaches to operas like ‘Tristan,’ or even these letters of Nelson, may over-ride everything else. We do not, of course, agree with that view, but if she holds it, it will perhaps enable us to understand that for others it is tenable. On the other hand, if she agrees with us, that will much strengthen our hands in dealing with the situation. Edith can hardly fail to have a great respect for her opinion. And then we might sound Hugh and if he takes our view also, I fancy we shall find our way smooth, without having seemed to apply any pressure, or having aroused any sense of antagonism.”
They had talked long over this one subject, and what with all the leeway that had to be made up on other topics owing to the Canon’s absence, time went so fast that it seemed almost incredible to them both that eight bells should break in on their talk. Further discussion, therefore, on secular subjects was adjourned, since it was the habit of the house to spend Sunday, of which the first hour had just chimed, with the mind as well as the deeds dissociated from the affairs of the week. Mrs. Alington, therefore, hastily gathered up the Patience cards which had been set out earlier in the evening, and her husband knocked the remains of his latest pipe of half-awakened bird’s-eye into the grate. But with his scrupulous sense of honesty, he had just one more question to ask.
“You think Edith understands about—about Lord Nelson and her,” he asked.
Mrs. Alington shook her head and pursed her lips.
“I think we may take it for granted,” she said.
Canon Alington lit two bedroom candles, drank a glass of water, and put out the lamp.