‘You haven’t!’ Mrs. Fairfield became the picture of righteous indignation. ‘You refuse to do a little thing like that for me, when your name would be so valuable to us!’
‘It wouldn’t be fair to my father. He’s a bit old-fashioned, I dare say, but there it is. He can’t help being an earl. He makes rather a point of my not getting too deep in the movement.’
The Honourable Richard Bunnard stood on one toe and twirled once round to assure every one that he was perfectly at ease.
‘Please don’t fidget, Bunny, when you’re talking to me, even though I am only an old woman. Once again I ask you, and for the last time: will you do the right thing, the public-spirited thing?’
Bunny tried to soothe the exasperated lady.
‘My dear Mrs. Fairfield, I’ve already promised my father.’
The storm burst.
‘Your father! Fiddlesticks your father! Hypatia’s at the bottom of this!’
‘Don’t get excited, mother,’ urged Edward.
‘I will, I will,’ retorted his mother. ‘I’ve a perfect right to get excited. You young people, you’ve got hearts of stone. All the love we mothers lavish on you is nothing to you. Do we get any gratitude? Not a bit! Scorn, yes, plenty of it! Scorn of our grey hairs and our silly ways and our ignorance. But gratitude—the last thing in the world.... Some chit of a girl comes....’