Mrs. Hammond raised her pretty eyebrows. "On the House Committee of St. Catherine's? Muriel? Well—really—I hadn't thought of it. Hardly the kind of work—I mean—not for a young girl—in contact with the sort of home like—well, really, what do you think yourself, Mr. Vaughan?"
"I think that the checking of bills for dust-pans and stair-rods can hardly be contaminating, even if they are to be used by reformed prostitutes," remarked the vicar dryly.
"Oh, well—it isn't quite that, you know. It's the idea of it. No other unmarried girl is on St. Catherine's Committee. It doesn't somehow seem to me quite the thing. Of course, if Muriel wants to very much—I never stand in her way over anything—girls do as they like nowadays, don't they? But I have always tried to keep her away from all that sort of thing as much as possible."
The vicar was uncertain afterwards whether he had really seen that expression cross Muriel's face then—that scornful yet submissive aversion, which lacked spirit even to be violent. He answered bravely:
"I think that Muriel is almost old enough to judge for herself."
"I'm not really keen, if Mother doesn't want me to," said Muriel.
And yet, in the following silence, the vicar could feel the clash and tension of their personalities as clearly as though swords had crossed. In the St. Catherine's incident lay some secret significance for Muriel and her mother. Behind Muriel's untranquil quiet lay a suppressed resentment, and somewhere, but Heaven knew where, lay the solution of her problem.
The vicar sighed, shook hands and walked unhappily homeward to write a long and troubled letter to his daughter.
XXXIV
Muriel had been to tea with Daisy Weathergay. She had nursed the Weathergay babies (there were now two) and looked at Weathergay photographs, and endured the reiterated recital of the heroism of Captain Dickie Weathergay in the Great War. She had been made to understand, if indeed she had not already understood, that the War only really affected the lives of those women married or engaged to soldiers at the Front; and the recollection that she was of those who had no right to feel anxiety or relief brought sharply home to her the thought of Godfrey at the Weare Grange.