Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. “I came across men in hospital,” she said, “to whom their childish terrors used to come back. Of course it made them able to stand anything as they grew up, for nothing they were likely to meet afterwards in an ordinary life could be such torture. But it seems a little like burning down the house to get roast pig. And, after all, the war has shown that it wasn’t worth while, because boys from happy homes were just as undefeatable as the children of brutes. In fact some of them who took it most simply had had the happiest childhood. Good schools do just as well now when the boys come by train as when they were frozen on the tops of coaches on the way and tortured when they got there.”
“Yes,” said Evangeline.
“I shall have to fool your husband a good deal before I get Ivor handed over to me,” Mrs. Vachell said, looking at her attentively.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Evangeline answered carelessly. “He doesn’t love the real you. That is the only thing that would annoy me.” Mrs. Vachell gave a little laugh.
“Who says women can’t stick together or tell the truth?” she said.
“Do they?” said Evangeline with indifference. “I wonder why.”
“Well, let’s get on,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I must do my shopping in a few minutes. I shall come to Drage next week, and, in the meantime, just behave as you would if you believed it was all going to happen as he says. Try to forget that it isn’t; and when I come you will find that the old ladies will be postponed for a few months at least. And another thing. You had better beg for Ivor to be sent to your mother. I want your husband to have knocked off that idea before I come or I should have to suggest it and fail. He shall tell you himself that it won’t do, and he will be getting uneasy about the old duchesses by that time if you are tragic enough.”
“Oh, it is beastly!” said Evangeline. “Hateful! disgusting! How can a man be so mean as to force his wife to filthy, low tricks to keep their only son with her while he is a baby and she has done nothing wrong. How dare he do it! I shall be a wicked woman before he has done with me.”
Mrs. Vachell again shrugged her shoulders. “Wait,” she said, “it is coming. There can be no stopping it in the end. We are in Parliament; we are almost in the Law; we have one foot in the Church. Wait, Evangeline, my dear. And in the meantime we won’t throw away the old weapons till the new are ready. They haven’t done bad service in the past.”