Such were Cecilia's inner feelings.
Even now she did not quite plumb the depths of Stephen's; she felt his
struggle with the ghost; she felt and admired his victory. What she did
not, could not, perhaps, realise, was the precise nature of the outrage
inflicted on him by Thyme's action. With her--being a woman--the
matter was more practical; she did not grasp, had never grasped, the
architectural nature of Stephen's mind--how really hurt he was by what
did not seem to him in due and proper order.
He spoke: "Why on earth, if she felt like that, couldn't she have gone
to work in the ordinary way? She could have put herself in connection
with some proper charitable society--I should never have objected to
that. It's all that young Sanitary idiot!"
"I believe," Cecilia faltered, "that Martin's is a society. It's a kind
of medical Socialism, or something of that sort. He has tremendous faith
in it."
Stephen's lip curled.
"He may have as much faith as he likes," he said, with the restraint
that was one of his best qualities, "so long as he doesn't infect my
daughter with it."
Cecilia said suddenly: "Oh! what are we to do, Stephen? Shall I go over
there to-night?"
As one may see a shadow pass down on a cornfield, so came the cloud on
Stephen's face. It was as though he had not realised till then the full
extent of what this meant.
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