“You have a beautiful nature, dear Aunt Zoë. But I feel sure that exquisite taste cannot have erred, shattered though we know you to be.”
Mrs Matthews fixed her soulful eyes on his face, and replied gravely: “Not shattered, Randall, but in a mood of—how shall I express it?—melancholy, perhaps, and yet not quite that. Gregory has been much in my thoughts.”
“Let me beg of you, Zoë, not to make yourself ridiculous by talking in that affected way!” said Mrs Lupton roundly. “You will find it very hard to convince me for one that Gregory has been in your thoughts, as you call it, for as much as ten seconds.”
“And I'm sure I don't know why he should be!” added Miss Matthews, a good deal annoyed. “I lived with Gregory all my life, and what is more he was my brother, and if he was in anyone's thoughts it was in mine, which indeed he was, for I have been sorting all his clothes, wondering whether we should not send most of them to a sale. Though there is an old coat which might very well be given to the gardener, and no doubt Guy would be glad of the new waterproof.”
“My thoughts were rather different, dear,” said Mrs Matthews. “I was in Knightsbridge, and found time to slip into the Oratory for a few moments. The peace of it! There was something in the whole atmosphere of the place which I can hardly describe, but which seemed to me just right, somehow.”
“It must have been the incense,” said Miss Matthews doubtfully. “Not that I care for it myself, or for joss-sticks either, though my mother used to be very fond of burning them in the drawing-room, I remember. Though why you should go into a Roman Catholic Church I can't imagine.”
“Nor anyone else,” said Mrs Lupton.
Janet said large-mindedly: “I think I can understand what you mean, Aunt Zoë. There's something about those places, though one can't approve of Roman Catholics, of course, but I can quite imagine how you felt.”
“No, dear, you are too young to understand, mercifully for yourself,” said Mrs Matthews, disdaining this wellmeant support. “You do not know anything of the dark side of life yet, and pray God you never may!”
“Oh, mother!” groaned Guy, writhing in acute discomfort.