She knew very well what they did think, the
people Winnie had in her mind--the old friends of her husband, and others
too, whose interest she had solicited with such flattering success. She
had not known before what a good beggar she could be. But she guessed
very well what inference was drawn from her application. On account of
that shrinking delicacy, which exists side by side with aggressive
brutality in masculine nature, the inquiries into her circumstances had
not been pushed very far. She had checked them by a visible compression
of the lips and some display of an emotion determined to be eloquently
silent. And the men would become suddenly incurious, after the manner of
their kind. She congratulated herself more than once on having nothing
to do with women, who being naturally more callous and avid of details,
would have been anxious to be exactly informed by what sort of unkind
conduct her daughter and son-in-law had driven her to that sad extremity.
It was only before the Secretary of the great brewer M. P. and Chairman
of the Charity, who, acting for his principal, felt bound to be
conscientiously inquisitive as to the real circumstances of the
applicant, that she had burst into tears outright and aloud, as a
cornered woman will weep. The thin and polite gentleman, after
contemplating her with an air of being "struck all of a heap," abandoned
his position under the cover of soothing remarks. She must not distress
herself. The deed of the Charity did not absolutely specify "childless
widows." In fact, it did not by any means disqualify her. But the
discretion of the Committee must be an informed discretion. One could
understand very well her unwillingness to be a burden, etc. etc.
Thereupon, to his profound disappointment, Mrs Verloc's mother wept some
more with an augmented vehemence.

The tears of that large female in a dark, dusty wig, and ancient silk
dress festooned with dingy white cotton lace, were the tears of genuine
distress. She had wept because she was heroic and unscrupulous and full
of love for both her children. Girls frequently get sacrificed to the
welfare of the boys. In this case she was sacrificing Winnie. By the
suppression of truth she was slandering her. Of course, Winnie was
independent, and need not care for the opinion of people that she would
never see and who would never see her; whereas poor Stevie had nothing in
the world he could call his own except his mother's