Lady Oxted's mind flew back with an inward smirk of satisfaction to her own heroic determination to keep the promise she had made to Evie.
"Probably you would," she said. "Probably we are not so bad, when it comes to—when we have an opportunity for behaving abominably, as we thought we were going to be. The thought of the dentist poisons my life for days beforehand, yet I go all the same, and ring the dreary bell, and behave, I believe, with average courage under the wheel. Morally, too, I suspect, we are better when a thing has to be done than we were afraid we were going to be. Also, on the whole, one is more honourable than one thinks—more honourable certainly," she added, with a sudden, irrepressible spurt of indignation against her husband—"than those who know us best believe us to be."
Evie laughed.
"Dear aunt, have you been very honourable lately?" she asked. "Or has Uncle Bob been doubting your fine qualities?"
"Cynicism always ends in disappointment," remarked Lady Oxted, leaping a conversational chasm, "but since it is cynical, I suppose it expects it."
"Is Uncle Bob a cynic?" asked Evie, dragging her back over the chasm again.
"Well, I made a promise the other day," said Lady Oxted, "and asked him his advice about it. He told me that I should probably reserve to myself the right to break it." Evie sat up suddenly, and toy makers and lazzaroni were swept from her mind.
"A promise?" she said. "Not the promise you made me?"
Lady Oxted looked up in surprise.
"Yes, the same. Why, dear?"