in tones of no great assurance; and then her face lit up with a smile which, tentative at first, soon became almost assured. “Nowadays, people don’t think so badly of these things as they used to do,” she began. “It will be horribly uncomfortable for them sometimes, but if they are brave, clever children, as they will be, I dare say it’ll make remarkable people of them in the end. Robert Browning used to say that every great man has Jewish blood in him, and we must try to look at it in that light. And, after all, Cyril has acted on principle. One may disagree with his principle, but, at least, one can respect it—like the French Revolution, or Cromwell cutting the King’s head off. Some of the most terrible things in history have been done on principle,” she concluded.
“I’m afraid I take a very different view of principle,” Cousin Caroline remarked tartly.
“Principle!” Aunt Celia repeated, with an air of deprecating such a word in such a connexion. “I will go to-morrow and see him,” she added.
“But why should you take these disagreeable things upon yourself, Celia?” Mrs. Hilbery interposed, and Cousin Caroline thereupon protested with some further plan involving sacrifice of herself.
Growing weary of it all, Katharine turned to the window, and stood among the folds of the curtain, pressing close to the window-pane, and gazing disconsolately at the river much in the attitude of a child depressed by the meaningless talk of its elders. She was much disappointed in her mother—and in herself too. The little tug which she gave to the blind, letting it fly up to the top with a snap, signified her annoyance. She was very angry, and yet impotent to give expression to her anger, or know with whom she was angry. How they talked and moralized and made up stories to suit their own version of the becoming, and secretly praised their own devotion and tact! No; they had their dwelling in a mist, she decided;
