One statement, made by Penborough, caused a flutter.
“If Catherine of Arragon had been immoral and Mary Stuart virtuous, the whole course of European History would have been different. The Reformation, for instance, would have found no favour in England.”
“That's very advanced,” murmured Lady Larch.
Sara, at dessert, tried to encourage a debate on the egoism of the Saints compared with the egoism of Montaigne.
“They were selfishly bent on pain and renunciation, he was selfishly bent on pleasure and indulgence. Isn't that the one difference between them, Mr. Orange?”
Orange refused to be drawn, but he promised to lend her the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists in sixty volumes in folio.
“After you have read them,” said he, “I will tell you my ideas about Montaigne.”
Many other remarks were probably more amusing; these, however, were the most characteristic.
When dinner was ended, Sara and the two ladies withdrew to the drawing-room, where they discussed with the utmost vehemence Orange's illegal marriage and Reckage's broken engagement.
The sum and substance of their investigations were as follows:—