Lady Dashwood spoke in a low, detaining voice. "Wait, May! Somehow she has got hold of him—somehow. Often the weak victimise the strong. Those who clamour for what they want, get it. Every day the wise are sacrificed to fools. I know it, and yet I sleep in peace. But when Jim is to be sacrificed—I can't sleep. I am like a withered leaf, blown by the wind."
May took her aunt's arm and laid her cheek against her shoulder.
"How can I sleep," said Lady Dashwood, "when I think of him, worried into the grave by petty anxieties, by the daily fretting of an irresponsible wife, by the hopeless daily task of trying to make something honourable and worthy—out of Belinda and Co.? When I say Belinda and Co., I think not merely of Belinda Scott and her child, but of all that Jim hates: the whole crew of noisy pleasure-hunters that float upon the surface of our social life. The time may come when we shall say to our social parasites, 'Take up your burden of life and work!' The time will come! But meanwhile Jim has to be sacrificed because he is hopelessly just. And yet I wouldn't have him otherwise. Go, dear, try and sleep, for all my talk." Then, as she drew away from her niece, she said in a tense whisper: "What an unforgivable fool he has been!"
May closed her eyes intently and said nothing.
"Oh, May," sighed Lady Dashwood, "forgive me; I feel so bitter that I could speak against God."
May looked up and laid her hand on her aunt's arm.
"You know those lines, Aunt Lena—
"Measure thy life by loss and not by gain,
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth!"
Lady Dashwood's eyes flashed. "If Jim had offered his life for England I could say that: but are we to pour forth wine to Belinda and Co.?"
The two women looked at each other; stared, silently.