One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
of inspection to the house of his building on his new estate.
He startled her. The Duvidney ladies were, to his knowledge,
of the order of the fragile minds which hold together
by the cement of a common trepidation for the support of
things established, and have it not in them to be able to
recognize the unsanctioned. Good women, unworldly of the
world, they were perforce harder than the world, from being
narrower and more timorous.
‘But, Victor, you were sure they would refuse!’
He answered: ‘They may have gone back to Tunbridge
Wells. By the way, they have a society down there I want for
Fredi. Sure, do you say, my dear? Perfectly sure. But the accumulation
of invitations and refusals in the end softens them,
you will see. We shall and must have them for Fredi.’
She was used to the long reaches of his forecasts, his burning
activity on a project; she found it idle to speak her
thought, that his ingenuity would have been needless in a
position dictated by plain prudence, and so much happier
for them.
They talked of Mrs. Burman until she had to lift a prayer
to be saved from darker thoughts, dreadfully prolific, not to
be faced. Part of her prayer was on behalf of Mrs. Burman,
for life to be extended to her, if the poor lady clung to life—
if it was really humane to wish it for her: and heaven would
know: heaven had mercy on the afflicted.
Nataly heard the snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer. She
had to cease to pray.
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