“Your blood too, father, and no fault of mine!” was her answer to that particular argument, to which “the governor” would answer, “Thank God the Norman strain is stronger than the Celtic, as far as I’m concerned.” She had ridiculed his Protestant austerity, flouted his parental commands as “Early Victorian tyranny,” and had become a Suffragette with a joyous assertion of “liberty” which meant for her late dances and no questions, rather than Votes for Women, at a time when Michael Pollard, M.P. (not K.C. then) was a violent antagonist of Women’s Rights.
Bertram had taken Susan’s part in these domestic scenes, but Dorothy had been his favourite sister, his best comrade, and her German marriage, and long exile and silence during the years of war had made a gap in his heart.
He spoke of her now.
“Have you heard from Doll lately?”
Mrs. Pollard looked nervously at the door and pulled out some letters from a little bag by her side.
“Your father doesn’t know I hear from her. You know he forbade all intercourse.”
“Rubbish!” said Bertram.
His mother confessed to a sense of guilt in having this secret from her husband, but it was more than she could bear to be cut off for ever from her first-born.
“She writes lovingly. Her marriage—and the War—have made no difference, except that she defends Germany a little.”
Bertram smiled at that, and said, “I suppose it is natural, but it takes a lot of doing, as far as the war’s concerned.” He asked about his other sister.