"She didn't hear, mamma. You needn't fuss."
"I was not fussing, my dear, but it's as well to.... Yes, go on with what you were saying." Because Lutwyche, being extinct, might be forgotten.
Gwen was looking round at the mirror. If Helen of Troy had seen herself in a mirror, all else being alike, what would her verdict have been? Gwen seemed fairly satisfied. "You meant Adrian might be disgusted?" said she.
The mother could not resist the pleasure of a satisfied glance at her daughter's reflection, which was not looking at her. "I meant nothing of the sort," she said. "But your father agreed with me—indeed, I am repeating his own words—that Mr. Torrens may have a false impression, having only really seen you once, under very peculiar circumstances. It is only human nature, and one has to make allowance for human nature. Now all that I am saying, and all that your father is saying, is that the circumstances are peculiar. Without some sort of reasonable guarantee that Mr. Torrens cannot recover his eyesight, I do contend that it would be in the highest degree rash to take an irrevocable step, and to condemn one—perhaps both, for I assure you I am thinking of Mr. Torrens's welfare as well as your own—to a lifetime of repentance."
"Mamma dear, don't be a humbug! You are only putting in Adrian's welfare for the sake of appearances. Much better let it alone!"
"My dear, it is not the point. If you choose to think me inhumane, you must do so. Only I must say this, that apart from the fact that I have nothing whatever against Mr. Torrens personally—except his religious views, which are lamentable—that his parents...."
"I thought you said you never knew his mother."
"No—perhaps not his mother." Her ladyship intensified the parenthetical character of this lady by putting her into smaller type and omitting punctuation:—"I can't say I ever really knew his mother and indeed hardly anything about her except that she was a Miss Abercrombie and goes plaguing on about negroes. But"—here she became normal again—"as for his father...."
"As for his father?"
"He was a constant visitor at my mother's, and I remember him very well. So there is no feeling on my part against him or his family." Her ladyship felt she had come very cleverly out of a bramble-bush she had got entangled in unawares, but she wanted to leave it behind on the road, and pushed on, speaking more earnestly:—"Indeed, my dearest child, it is of you and your happiness that I am thinking—although I know you won't believe me, and it's no use my saying anything...." At this point feelings were threatened; and Gwen, between whom and her mother there was plenty of affection, of a sort, hastened to allay—or perhaps avert—them. She shifted her seat to the sofa beside her mother, which made daughterliness more possible. A short episode of mutual extenuations followed; for had not a flavour of battle—not tigerish, but contentious—pervaded the interview?