"You must have a fur coat, Miss Bush! I am greatly annoyed that I did not remark that you were insufficiently clad before we started. Here, crouch down under this rug--and there is an extra one at my feet you must wrap round you."
Katherine was grateful.
"Stirling must find you some warm garment of mine while we are at Blissington. I have no patience with idiots who deliberately take cold."
Katherine agreed with her.
"Do you know the English country, or are you quite a c.o.c.kney girl?" she was then asked.
"No, I hardly know it at all. I know Brighton, and a lot of seaside places, but we never chanced to go to the country for our holidays."
"It is a wonderful place, the English country, the most beautiful in the world, I think; it will interest me immensely to hear your impressions of it; after a week you must tell me."
"I shall be very pleased to do so."
"We pa.s.s Windsor; you must go over it some day--it is only twenty miles from Blissington--. Are you interested in historical a.s.sociations?"
"Extremely--any places which are saturated with the evolution of man and nations are interesting, I think. I am afraid I would not care to go to Australia, or a new country."
Lady Garribardine turned and looked at her secretary. The creature evidently had a brain, and this would be a good opportunity to draw her out.
"You feel the force of tradition, then?"
"Oh, yes--in everything. It acts for generations in the blood--it makes people do all sorts of things, good and bad, quite without reason."
Lady Garribardine chuckled--she loved discussions.
"How does it act in yourself, for instance?"
"I have tried to stop its action in myself, because I saw the effects of the traditions of my cla.s.s in my brothers and sisters, and how stultifying it was."
"You certainly seem to have emerged from them in an extraordinary manner--how did you set about it?"
Katherine thought a little and then answered deliberately.
"I always wanted to know the reason why of everything and I soon felt sure that there was no such thing as chance, but that everything which happened was part of some scheme--and I always desired to be able to distinguish between appearance and reality, and I got to understand that personal emotion distorts all reality and creates appearance, and so I began to try to dissociate things from personal emotion in my judgments of them."
"Yes, but how about tradition?"
"Tradition suggested certain views and actions to me--but looked at without emotion, I saw that they were foolish. I a.n.a.lysed my brothers"
and sisters" ideas and instincts because I wanted to see if what I did not like in them was inevitable in myself too from the force of tradition or if there was any way to get rid of stupidities."
"And you found?"
"Of course, that everything, even instincts, can be eradicated if only their origins can be traced and the will is strong enough to overcome them."
"Yes, everything depends upon will. And you found time for all this reasoning while you kept the accounts at the pork-butcher"s?"
Lady Garribardine"s eyebrows ran quizzically up into her forehead, and there was a twinkle in her eye. She was greatly amused.
"Yes--in the evenings."
"No wonder you have emerged! You do not allow yourself to have any emotions then?"
Katherine looked away demurely.
"I try not to indulge in them; it is more prudent to watch their action in others."
"Have you ever been in love, child?"
"It depends upon what one calls love." The tone was dignified. Katherine did not think this quite a fair question.
Lady Garribardine laughed appreciatively.
"You are quite right. I should not have asked you that, since we were up upon a plane of discussion in which even women do not lie to one another!"
"If Your Ladyship will permit me to say so, women have very little notion of truth, I think!"
"Oh! that is too bad. You must always stand up for your s.e.x."
"Forgive me for differing, but I should be acting from good nature in that case, not from justice."
Lady Garribardine was delighted.
"So you think we are not truthful as a company?"
"Oh, no, we have no love of abstract truth, truth for itself. When we are truthful in our general dealings with people, it is either because we have decent characters or religious views, or for our own ends, not from a detached love of truth."
"What a cynic! And how about men?"
"A man is truthful because he likes truth, and to tell lies he feels would degrade himself."
"And yet men always lie to women--have you remarked that, girl?"
"Yes--that seems to be the one exception in their standard of truth."
"How do you account for this? Have you found the "reason why" of this peculiarity?"
"It seems presumptuous of me to give my views to Your Ladyship."
"I think I am the best judge of that matter," and Lady Garribardine frowned a little. "I asked a question."
Katherine answered then immediately. She was not quite pleased with herself for her last remark, it had laid her open to a snub.
"Original man had no regard for women--they were as the animals to him--he would not have felt degraded in lying to animals--because such a thing could not occur. He would not consult animals--he simply ordered them."
"Well?"