"But, my dear!"
"She's out of harmony," said Adeline.
Mrs. Bunting looked out of her window at the tamarisk and the sea. "I'm
sure I wouldn't do anything to hurt Harry's prospects. You know how
enthusiastic we all are. Randolph would do anything. But are you sure
she will be in the way?"
"What else can she be?"
"She might help even."
"Oh, help!"
"She might canvass. She's very attractive, you know, dear."
"Not to me," said Miss Glendower. "I don't trust her."
"But to some people. And as Harry says, at election times every one who
can do anything must be let do it. Cut them--do anything afterwards,
but at the time--you know he talked of it when Mr. Fison and he were
here. If you left electioneering only to the really nice people----"
"It was Mr. Fison said that, not Harry. And besides, she wouldn't help."
"I think you misjudge her there, dear. She has been asking----"
"To help?"
"Yes, and all about it," said Mrs. Bunting, with a transient pink. "She
keeps asking questions about why we are having the election and what it
is all about, and why Harry is a candidate and all that. She wants to go
into it quite deeply. _I_ can't answer half the things she asks."
"And that's why she keeps up those long conversations with Mr. Melville,
I suppose, and why Fred goes about neglecting Mabel----"
"My dear!" said Mrs. Bunting.
"I wouldn't have her canvassing with us for anything," said Miss
Glendower. "She'd spoil everything. She is frivolous and satirical. She
looks at you with incredulous eyes, she seems to blight all one's
earnestness.... I don't think you quite understand, dear Mrs. Bunting,
what this election and my studies mean to me--and Harry. She comes
across all that--like a contradiction."
"Surely, my dear! I've never heard her contradict."
"Oh, she doesn't contradict. But she-- There is something about her-- One
feels that things that are most important and vital are nothing to her.
Don't you feel it? She comes from another world to us."
Mrs. Bunting remained judicial. Adeline dropped to a lower key again. "I
think," she said, "anyhow, that we're taking her very easily. How do we
know what she is? Down there, out there, she may be anything. She may
have had excellent reasons for coming to land----"
"My dear!" cried Mrs. Bunting. "Is that charity?"
"How do they live?"
"If she hadn't lived nicely I'm sure she couldn't behave so nicely."
"Besides--coming here! She had no invitation----"
"I've invited her now," said Mrs. Bunting gently.
"You could hardly help yourself. I only hope your kindness----"
"It's not a kindness," said Mrs. Bunting, "it's a duty. If she were
only half as charming as she is. You seem to forget"--her voice
dropped--"what it is she comes for."
"That's what I want to know."
"I'm sure in these days, with so much materialism about and such
wickedness everywhere, when everybody who has a soul seems trying to
lose it, to find any one who hadn't a soul and who is trying to find
one----"
"But _is_ she trying to get one?"
"Mr. Flange comes twice every week. He would come oftener, as you know,
if there wasn't so much confirmation about."
"And when he comes he sits and touches her hand if he can, and he talks
in his lowest voice, and she sits and smiles--she almost laughs outright
at the things he says."
"Because he has to win his way with her. Surely Mr. Flange may do what
he can to make religion attractive?"
"I don't believe she believes she will get a soul. I don't believe she
wants one a bit."
She turned towards the door as if she had done.
Mrs. Bunting's pink was now permanent. She had brought up a son and two
daughters, and besides she had brought down a husband to "My dear, how
was _I_ to know?" and when it was necessary to be firm--even with
Adeline Glendower--she knew how to be firm just as well as anybody.
"My dear," she began in her very firmest quiet manner, "I am positive
you misjudge Miss Waters. Trivial she may be--on the surface at any
rate. Perhaps she laughs and makes fun a little. There are different
ways of looking at things. But I am sure that at bottom she is just as
serious, just as grave, as--any one. You judge her hastily. I am sure if
you knew her better--as I do----"
Mrs. Bunting left an eloquent pause.
Miss Glendower had two little pink flushes in her cheeks. She turned
with her hand on the door.
"At any rate," she said, "I am sure that Harry will agree with me that
she can be no help to our cause. We have our work to do and it is
something more than just vulgar electioneering. We have to develop and
establish ideas. Harry has views that are new and wide-reaching. We want
to put our whole strength into this work. Now especially. And her
presence----"
She paused for a moment. "It is a digression. She divides things. She
puts it all wrong. She has a way of concentrating attention about
herself. She alters the values of things. She prevents my being
single-minded, she will prevent Harry being single-minded----"
"I think, my dear, that you might trust my judgment a little," said Mrs.
Bunting and paused.
Miss Glendower opened her mouth and shut it again, without speaking. It
became evident finality was attained. Nothing remained to be said but
the regrettable.
The door opened and closed smartly and Mrs. Bunting was alone.
Within an hour they all met at the luncheon table and Adeline's
behaviour to the Sea Lady and to Mrs. Bunting was as pleasant and alert
as any highly earnest and intellectual young lady's could be. And all
that Mrs. Bunting said and did tended with what people call infinite
tact--which really, you know, means a great deal more tact than is
comfortable--to develop and expose the more serious aspect of the Sea
Lady's mind. Mr. Bunting was unusually talkative and told them all about
a glorious project he had just heard of, to cut out the rather shrubby
and weedy front of the Leas and stick in something between a wine vault
and the Crystal Palace as a Winter Garden--which seemed to him a very
excellent idea indeed.