ss of the eye-lids, her elaborate
appearance revealed no mark of agitation; but Darrow noticed that,
in recognition of the solemnity of the occasion, she pinched a lace
handkerchief between her thumb and forefinger.

She plunged at once into the centre of the difficulty, appealing to him,
in the name of all the Everards, to descend there with her to the rescue
of her darling. She wasn't, she was sure, addressing herself in vain to
one whose person, whose "tone," whose traditions so brilliantly declared
his indebtedness to the principles she besought him to defend. Her own
reception of Darrow, the confidence she had at once accorded him,
must have shown him that she had instinctively felt their unanimity of
sentiment on these fundamental questions. She had in fact recognized in
him the one person whom, without pain to her maternal piety, she could
welcome as her son's successor; and it was almost as to Owen's father
that she now appealed to Darrow to aid in rescuing the wretched boy.

"Don't think, please, that I'm casting the least reflection on Anna,
or showing any want of sympathy for her, when I say that I consider
her partly responsible for what's happened. Anna is 'modern'--I believe
that's what it's called when you read unsettling books and admire
hideous pictures. Indeed," Madame de Chantelle continued, leaning
confidentially forward, "I myself have always more or less lived in that
atmosphere: my son, you know, was very revolutionary. Only he didn't, of
course, apply his ideas: they were purely intellectual. That's what dear
Anna has always failed to understand. And I'm afraid she's created the
same kind of confusion in Owen's mind--led him to mix up things you read
about with things you do...You know, of course, that she sides with him
in this wretched business?"

Developing at length upon this theme, she finally narrowed down to
the point of Darrow's intervention. "My grandson, Mr. Darrow, calls me
illogical and uncharitable because my feelings toward Miss Viner have
changed since I've heard this news. Well! You've known her, it appears,
for some years: Anna tells me you used to see her when she was a
companion, or secretary or something, to a dreadfully vulgar Mrs.
Murrett. And I ask you as a friend, I ask you as one of US, to tell me
if you think a girl who has had to knock about the world in that kind
of position, and at the orders of all kinds of people, is fitted to be
Owen's wife I'm not implying anyth