Some Do Not . . ._ A Novel - Ford Madox Ford [89]
They played that comedy occasionally, for it is impossible for two people to live in the same house and not have some common meeting ground. So they would each talk: sometimes talking at great length and with politeness, each thinking his or her thoughts till they drifted into silence.
And, since she had acquired the habit of going into retreat--with an Anglican sisterhood in order to annoy Tietjens, who hated convents and considered that the communions should not mix--Sylvia had acquired also the habit of losing herself almost completely in reveries. Thus she was now vaguely conscious that a greyish lump, Tietjens, sat at the head of a whitish expanse: the lunch-table. There were also books...actually she was seeing a quite different figure and other books--the books of Glorvina's husband, for the great lady had received Sylvia in that statesman's library.
Glorvina, who was the mother of two of Sylvia's absolutely most intimate friends, had sent for Sylvia. She wished, kindly and even wittily, to remonstrate with Sylvia because of her complete abstention from any patriotic activity. She offered Sylvia the address of a place in the city where she could buy wholesale and ready-made diapers for babies which Sylvia could present to some charity or other as being her own work. Sylvia said she would do nothing of the sort, and Glorvina said she would present the idea to poor Mrs Pilsenhauser. She Glorvina--said she spent some time every day thinking out acts of patriotism for the distressed rich with foreign names, accents or antecedents...
Glorvina was a fiftyish lady with a pointed, grey face and a hard aspect; but when she was inclined to be witty or to plead earnestly she had a kind manner. The room in which they were was over a Belgravia back garden. It was lit by a skylight, and the shadows from above deepened the lines of her face, accentuating the rather dusty grey of the hair as well as both the hardness and the kind manner. This very much impressed Sylvia, who was used to seeing the lady by artificial light...
She said, however:
'You don't suggest, Glorvina, that I'm the distressed rich with a foreign name!'
The great lady had said:
'My dear Sylvia; it isn't so much you as your husband. Your last exploit with the Esterhazys and Metternichs has pretty well done for him. You forget that the present powers that be are not logical...'
Sylvia remembered that she had sprung up from her leather saddle-back chair, exclaiming:
'You mean to say that those unspeakable swine think that I'm...'
Glorvina said patiently:
'My dear Sylvia, I've already said it's not you. It's your husband that suffers. He appears to be too good a fellow to suffer. Mr Waterhouse says so. I don't know him myself, well.'
Sylvia remembered that she had said:
'And who in the world is Mr Waterhouse?' and hearing that Mr Waterhouse was a late Liberal Minister, had lost interest. She couldn't, indeed, remember any of the further words of her hostess, as words. The sense of them had too much overwhelmed her...
She stood now, looking at Tietjens and only occasionally seeing him, her mind completely occupied with the effort to recapture Glorvina's own words in the desire for exactness. Usually she remembered conversations pretty well; but on this occasion her mad fury, her feeling of nausea, the pain of her own nails in her palms, an unrecoverable sequence of emotions, had overwhelmed her.
She looked at Tietjens now with a sort of gloating curiosity. How was it possible that the most honourable man she knew should be so overwhelmed by foul and baseless rumours? It made you suspect that honour had, in itself, a quality of the