Part 22 (1/2)
”You must have a fur coat, Miss Bus.h.!.+ 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.