"Say anything to his mother? Certainly not, Albinia!" He straightened his shoulders. "It is my intention to take no notice of it whatever."
"You have not even acknowledged it?" she asked, timidly.
"A line—in the third person."
"Edward thinks Lady Coryston most unwise—"
"So she is—most unwise!" cried Lord William, warmly. "Coryston has every right to complain of her."
"You think she has done wrong?"
"Certainly. A woman has no right to do such things—whatever her son may be. For a woman to take upon herself the sole direction and disposal of such properties as the Coryston properties is to step outside the bounds of her sex; it is to claim something which a woman ought not to claim—something altogether monstrous and unnatural!"
Lord William's thin features had flushed under a sudden rush of feeling. His wife could not help the sudden thought, "But if we had had an infidel or agnostic son?"
Aloud she said, "You don't think his being such a Radical, so dreadfully extreme and revolutionary, justifies her?"
"Not at all! That was God's will—the cross she had to bear. She interferes with the course of Providence—presumptuously interferes with it—doing evil that what she conceives to be good may come. A woman must persuade men by gentleness—not govern them by force. If she attempts that she is usurping what does not—what never can—belong to her."