hey made him do all sorts of
penances before they gave him absolution. But he stuck to it. In due
time he became a priest and entered one of them religious houses.
They think a lot of him at Louvain. I've seen him once or twice but
I can't bear to meet his eyes--they're somethin' like yours--make me
feel a reg'lar Jezebel. And as to you? Well, when he left me I
hadn't got much money left; so, before I begged a passage back to
England, I called in at the very hotel where you found me the other
day, and where me an' my barrister friend had been stayin'. I'd got
to know the proprietress a little--real kind-'earted woman she was.
She said to me 'See here. You stop with me and help me in the bureau
and have your baby. I'll look after you. And when you can get about
again, stop on and help me in my business. I reckon you're the type
of woman I've bin looking out for this long while.' And that's how
the first of the Warren Hotels was started and that's where you were
born ... in October, Eighteen--seventy--five--"

(Vivie gave a little shudder, but her mother's thoughts were so
intent on the past that she did not perceive it.)

_Mrs. Warren_: "Dj'ever see yer Aunt Liz?"

Vivie told her of the grim experiences already touched on in Chapter
I.

_Mrs. Warren_: "Well she dropped _me_--_com_pletely--from the time
she married that Canon. And I respected her. She was comfortably
off, her past was dead and done with. D'yer think _I_ wanted to
bother 'er? Not I. It depends so much on the way you was born and
brought up. If Liz had been the child of a respectable married
couple that could give her a good start in life, 'probability is
she'd have run straight from the first. Dunno about me. I was always
a bit larky. And yet d'you know, I think if yer father hadn't been a
sort of young god, with his head in the skies, and no reg'lar
income, if he'd a married me and been kind to me ... I should have
been an honest woman all the rest of me life....

"What do _you_ feel about morality? You don't seem to have much
faith in religion, yet you've always taken a high line--and somehow
I'm glad you have--about things that never seemed to me to matter
much. We're given these passions and desires--and my! don't it hurt,
falling in love!--and then the clergy, though they're awful
humbugs, tells us we must deny our cravings..."

_Vivie_: "In the main the clergy are right in what they preach
though they give the wrong reasons. We must try to re