How much else than vanity? As she turned restlessly from side to side, possessed by plans for punishing George, for humiliating Lady Maxwell, and avenging herself, she said to herself that she did not care,—that it was not worth caring about,—that she would either bring George to his senses, or manage to amuse herself without him.
But in reality she was held tortured and struggling all the time in the first grip of that masterful hold wherewith the potter lifts his clay when he lays it on the eternal whirring of the wheel.
CHAPTER XVI
The newspapers of the morning following these events—that is to say, of Saturday, July 5—gave very lively accounts of the East End meeting, at which, as some put it, Lady Maxwell "had got her answer" from the East End mob. The stone-throwing, the blow, the woman, and the cause were widely discussed that same day throughout the clubs and drawing-rooms of Mayfair and Belgravia, no less than among the clubs and "publics" of the East End; and the guests at country-house parties as they hurried out of town for the Sunday, carried the gossip of the matter far and wide. The Maxwells went down alone to Brookshire, and the curious visitors who called in St. James's Square "to inquire" came away with nothing to report.
"A put-up thing, the whole business," said Mrs. Watton, indignantly, to her son Harding, as she handed him the "Observer," on the Sunday morning, in the dining-room of the family house in Tilney Street. "Of course, a little martyrdom just now suits her book excellently. How that man can let her make him a laughing-stock in this way—"
"A laughing-stock?" said Harding, smiling. "Not at all. Don't spoil your first remark, mother. For, of course, it is all practical politics. The handsomest woman in England doesn't give her temple to be gashed for nothing. You will see what her friends will make out of it!—and out of the brutal violence of our mob."
"Disgusting!" said Mrs. Watton, playing severely with the lid of the mustard-pot that stood beside her.
She and Harding were enjoying a late breakfast tête-à-tête. The old Squire had finished long before, and was already doing his duty with a volume of sermons in the library upstairs, preparatory to going to church. Mrs. Watton and Harding, however, would accompany him thither presently; for Harding was a great supporter of the Establishment.
The son raised his shoulders at his mother's adjective.
"What I want to know," he said, "is whether Lady Maxwell is going to bag
George Tressady, or not. He brought her home from the meeting on Friday."