"And that's what we bring them up for!" she exclaimed at last—"that they may do all these ugly, stale, stupid things over again. Oh! I'm not thinking so much, of the morals!"—she turned to Naseby with a defiant look. "I am thinking of the hateful cruelty and unkindness!"
"To his mother?" said Naseby. He shrugged his shoulders.
Betty allowed herself an outburst. Her little hand trembled on her knee. Naseby did not reply. Not that he disagreed; far from it. Under his young and careless manner he was already a person of settled character, cherishing a number of strong convictions. But since it had become the fashion to talk as frankly of a matter of this kind to your married-women friends as to anybody else, he thought that the women should take it with more equanimity.
Betty, indeed, regained her composure very quickly, like a stream when the gust has passed. They fell into a keen, practical discussion of the affair. Who had influence with Ancoats? What man? Naseby shook his head. The difference in age between Ancoats and Maxwell was too great, and the men too unlike in temperament. He himself had done what he could, in vain, and Ancoats now told him nothing; for the rest, he thought Ancoats had very few friends amid his innumerable acquaintance, and such as he had, of a third-rate dramatic sort, not likely to be of much use at this moment.
"I haven't seen him take to any fellow of his own kind as much as he has taken to George Tressady these two days, since he left Cambridge. But that's no good, of course—it's too new."
The two sat side by side, pondering. Suddenly Naseby said, smiling, with a change of expression:
"This party is really quite interesting. Look there!"
Betty looked, and saw George Tressady, with his hands in his pockets, lounging along a distant path beside Marcella Maxwell.
"Well!" said Betty, "what then?"
Naseby gave his mouth a twist.