Helen looked out at the sea.
“Don’t even discuss political economy with Henry,” advised her sister. “It’ll only end in a cry.”
“But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with religion,” said Helen slowly. “I don’t like those men. They are scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good—and it is always that sloppy ‘somehow’—will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Basts of today are in pain.”
“He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!”
“But oh, Meg, what a theory!”
“Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?”
“Because I’m an old maid,” said Helen, biting her lip. “I can’t think why I go on like this myself.” She shook off her sister’s hand and went into the house. Margaret, distressed at the day’s beginning, followed the Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She saw that Helen’s nerves were exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of politeness. There might at any minute be a real explosion, which even Henry would notice. Henry must be removed.
“Margaret!” her aunt called. “Magsy! It isn’t true, surely, what Mr. Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?”
“Not ‘want,’” was Margaret’s prompt reply; “but there is so much to be settled, and I do want to see the Charles’.”
“But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?” said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. “Without going once more up Nine Barrows Down?”