Agatha said quietly:
“Mother, if she was divorced, I don't think Eustace would.”
“There's that, certainly,” murmured Lady Valleys; “hope for the best!”
“Don't you even know which way it was?” said Lady Casterley.
“Well, the vicar says she did the divorcing. But he's very charitable; it may be as Agatha hopes.”
“I detest vagueness. Why doesn't someone ask the woman?”
“You shall come with me, Granny dear, and ask her yourself; you will do it so nicely.”
Lady Casterley looked up.
“We shall see,” she said. Something struggled with the autocratic criticism in her eyes. No more than the rest of the world could she help indulging Barbara. As one who believed in the divinity of her order, she liked this splendid child. She even admired—though admiration was not what she excelled in—that warm joy in life, as of some great nymph, parting the waves with bare limbs, tossing from her the foam of breakers. She felt that in this granddaughter, rather than in the good Agatha, the patrician spirit was housed. There were points to Agatha, earnestness and high principle; but something morally narrow and over-Anglican slightly offended the practical, this-worldly temper of Lady Casterley. It was a weakness, and she disliked weakness. Barbara would never be squeamish over moral questions or matters such as were not really, essential to aristocracy. She might, indeed, err too much the other way from sheer high spirits. As the impudent child had said: “If people had no pasts, they would have no futures.” And Lady Casterley could not bear people without futures. She was ambitious; not with the low ambition of one who had risen from nothing, but with the high passion of one on the top, who meant to stay there.
“And where have you been meeting this—er—anonymous creature?” she asked.