“Did you say that I would deceive people to make them comfortable?” asked Martin.
“Yes; at least I hope you would. But you Challoners are all slightly cracked, I think. You owe your vividness to that. You, Helen, your father, all see things out of their real proportion.”
“Have you ever seen Aunt Susan?” asked Martin.
“No; is she dreadful?”
“Not at all, but not vivid. It was she who really made Helen go home and live there.”
“Then your Aunt Susan is a very stupid person,” said Lady Sunningdale. “My dear, there are only two sorts of people in the world, the clever and the stupid. Nobody is good, nobody is bad. At least, they may be for all that it matters, but goodness and badness in themselves have no result. There is nothing more colourless than moral qualities; it is only brains that give colour to them. Do you choose your friends because they are good? I am sorry for you. Of course, I don’t want you to choose them because they are bad. The one is as idiotic as the other. But brains! There is nothing else in the world, and very little of that. And moral qualities are like corsets. If they are tight they hinder free development, and if they are loose, you might as well not wear them at all.”
Lady Sunningdale had taken her feet off the bed during this remarkable speech and looked more closely at Martin.
“Your forehead is bulging, Martin,” she said, “and your hair is dipping like a plume into your left eye. That happens, I notice, when you play, and it means you are thinking. So you are thinking now. What is it?”
Martin did not deny the soft impeachment.
“Yes, I was thinking,” he said. “I don’t imagine that what I was thinking about would interest you in the least.”