“Tell us your idea of a woman’s duty, Mrs. Jordan,” prompted Madame Bertaux maliciously. Mrs. Jordan delivered herself of various immemorial sentiments which met the usual applause. But Madame Bertaux said brusquely that she thought if that sort of thing were preached at women much longer, they would end by throwing over duty altogether, in sheer disgust at the whole one-sided business. Mrs. Jordan bristled, and launched herself upon a long and virtuous sentence. Her daughter Marion looked up sharply when Madame Bertaux spoke. Then a timid, cautious glance fell on her mother. Marion had lost her freshness and her exquisite ætherial quality; otherwise there was little change in her appearance. Hadria was struck by the way in which she had looked at Madame Bertaux, and it occurred to her that Marion Fenwick was probably not quite so acquiescent and satisfied as her friends supposed. But she would not speak out. Early training had been too strong for her.
Professor Theobald was unusually serious to-night. He did not respond to Hadria’s flippancy. He looked at her with grave, sympathetic eyes. He seemed to intimate that he understood all that was passing in her mind, and was not balked by sprightly appearances. There was no sign of cynicism now, no bandying of compliments. His voice had a new ring of sincerity. It was a mood that Hadria had noticed in him once or twice before, and when it occurred, her sympathy was aroused; she felt that she had done him injustice. This was evidently the real man; his ordinary manner must be merely the cloak that the civilized being acquires the habit of wrapping round him, as a protection against the curiosity of his fellows. The Professor himself expressed it almost in those words: “It is because of the infinite variety of type and the complexity of modern life which the individual is called upon to encounter, that a sort of fancy dress has to be worn by all of us, as a necessary shield to our individuality and our privacy. We cannot go through the complex process of adjustment to each new type that we come across, so by common consent, we wear our domino, and respect the unwritten laws of the great bal masqué that we call society.”
The conversation took more and more intimate and serious turns. Mrs. Jordan was the only check upon it. Madame Bertaux followed up her first heresy by others even more bold.
“Whenever one wants very particularly to have one’s way about a matter,” she said, “one sneaks off and gets somebody else persuaded that it is his duty to sacrifice himself for us—c’est tout simple—and the chances are that he meekly does it. If he doesn’t, at least one has the satisfaction of making him feel a guilty wretch, and setting oneself up with a profitable grievance for life.”
“To the true woman,” said Mrs. Jordan, who had ruled her family with a rod of iron for thirty stern years, “there is no joy to equal that of self-sacrifice.”
“Except that of exacting it,” added Hadria.
“I advise everyone desirous of dominion to preach that duty, in and out of season,” said Madame Bertaux. “It is seldom that the victims even howl, so well have we trained them.”
“Truly I hope so!” cried Professor Theobald. “It must be most galling when their lamentations prevent one from committing one’s justifiable homicide in peace and quietness. Imagine the discomfort of having a half-educated victim to deal with, who can’t hold his tongue and let one perform the operation quietly and comfortably. It is enough to embitter any Christian!”
The party broke up, with many cordial expressions of pleasure, and several plans were made for immediately meeting again. Lady Engleton was delighted to see that Mrs. Temperley entered with animation, into some projects for picnics and excursions in the neighbourhood.
“Did I not tell you that all you wanted was a little lively society?” she said, with genuine warmth, as the two women stood in the hall, a little apart from the others.