Then in a semi-humorous, indifferent way she gave alternately its actual wording and the upshot of some of its passages. Lady Arkroyd hoped she had been misinformed about her daughter's intentions. She was aware that she had no longer any legal control over her, and she made no appeal to anything but her good feeling. She would not comment on the character of the associates with whom her daughter would probably be brought in contact. She would limit what she had to say entirely to the underlined deep grief that Sir M. and herself would experience if their child persisted in a course which could only lead to degradation and disgrace. She then forgot her promise to say nothing against the profession, and gave a brief sketch of it founded on Hogarth's "Strolling Players." After which she wound up with an exhortation to her daughter not to break her father's underlined heart in his underlined old age. "And so on," said Judith, in placid conclusion, still continuing her persecution of the beetle. Challis's infatuation believed that all this was parti pris—mere bravado; and that his insight saw truly a hinterland of devoted affection to her parents, and consideration for the comfort of beetles. Such is the power of beauty!
"And that letter determined you to give up the drama?"
"Oh no!—it was only the beginning of it. I wrote in reply, saying I was sorry to give pain to such an exemplary parent as my papa—that was not the wording, only the sense—but that I had made up my mind, and was not prepared to disappoint you in order to keep up the traditions of a rather dreary respectability. I said you had written this part for me, and I had promised to play it, and that ended the matter. My ancestors had always kept their promises, and I should keep mine. I laid a good deal of stress on Sibyl." At this point the beetle got away cleverly, threatening a break in the conversation. This was not what Challis wanted.
"I don't understand," said he. "Why 'stress on Sibyl'?"
"I mean on Sibyl's being allowed to indulge all her fancies, at any cost; and to take up trade, too—a thing that our ancestors would not have tolerated for a moment. Why is the Great Idea to be capitalized with thousands?..."
"And Shakespeare's trade discountenanced? I see, and agree in the main. I suppose they said it wasn't a trade—the Great Idea?"
"They did. Sibyl said it was Guilds and Crafts, and Mediæval, and quite another thing. Perhaps it is; I don't know. But I'm sure 'Sibyl Arkroyd, Limited' is neither Mediæval nor Guilds, and that's what they propose to call it."
"It sounds like six three-farthings, and pay at the desk. They can hardly be in earnest."
"Well, I don't know! People of—of condition are getting to take such curious views of things. It's nothing nowadays for a Countess to promise punctual attention to orders. Was it you told me there was a Curate who preached a Sermon on the New Atheism in its relation to Socialism?... No?—oh, then, it was somebody else!"
Challis suspected that Judith was talking in this way to defer telling him the upshot of the family discussion. He said nothing, and the flight of a heron filled out a lapse into silence which followed. And then Judith, who had risen from the tree-root to watch the vanishing bird, turned to Challis, and resumed: