“Gilbert will make an excellent husband.” Lady Currey, to her great amazement, perceived that she was actually holding a brief for Gilbert. The thing was absurd.
“Oh, yes!” murmured her old friend vaguely. “But all the old-fashioned virtues are so out of date now, like four-wheelers and stage-coaches. The modern excellent husband is such a different article from what we called an excellent husband fifty years ago. I often think what a dreadful bore that good, old-fashioned husband must have been. I am sure those Early Victorian wives must have died of their partners’ excellences. Have you noticed how sad they always look in their portraits?”
“In my young days marriage was considered a sacrament,” remarked Lady Currey stiffly, glancing out of the corner of her eye at a notable array of masculine portraits. “I consider the interpretation and shortening of the marriage service nowadays scandalous. The Bishop of Dorminster quite agrees with me.”
“I am sure he would. If you sell patent medicines, you must believe in patent medicines.... Why don’t you start a campaign against it? I can see you at the head of a flourishing Anti society. I would join it with pleasure, Marian.”
Lady Currey stiffened. “Gilbert has very nice ideas about women.”
“What are nice ideas about women, Marian?”
“He treats women with respect and proper deference.”
“How dull!” murmured Circe, looking at the portrait of a man who had not treated her with undue respect.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said how delightful. But I hope he can—er—offer Claudia something more than respect. I hope he appreciates her and can offer a good deal of love and admiration. Some people set a great store by love—I fancy Claudia does. You see, that would be the one thing—you will forgive my speaking frankly like an old friend—that would compensate her father and me for a less good match than we had the right to expect. We want her to be happy, but Claudia is very much admired. She has had many good offers—I know, though she hasn’t told me—and I should feel a little sad if I thought Gilbert did not adore her. She is really rather a dear. I quite admire her myself, and I admire very few women.”