e suave King's Counsel with the remnants of mutton-chop
whiskers--if she could wean Michael away from that disturbing
nonsense--he could assign "militancy" as the justification of his
change of mind...! All that was asked by Authority, so far as she
could interpret hints from great ladies, was neutrality, the return
of Professor Rossiter to the paths of pure science in which area no
one disputed his eminence. _Then_ he might receive that knighthood
that was long overdue; better still his next lot of discoveries in
anatomy might bring him the peerage he richly deserved and which her
wealth would support. He could then rest on his oars, cease his more
or less nasty investigations; they could take a place in the country
and move from this much too large house which lay almost outside the
limits of Society's London to a really well-appointed flat in
Westminster and have a thoroughly enjoyable old age.

Honoria in these times did not see so much of Vivie as before. Her
warrior husband spent a good deal of 1912 at home as he had a
Hounslow command. He had come to realize--some spiteful person had
told him--who Vivie's mother had been, and told Honoria in accents
of finality that the "Aunt Vivie" nonsense must be dropped and Vivie
must not come to the house. At the most, if she _must_ meet her
friend of college days--oh, he was quite willing to believe in her
personal propriety, though there were odd stories in circulation
about her dressing as a man and doing some very rum things for the
W.S.P.U.--still if she _must_ see her, it would have to be in public
places or at her friends, at Lady Feenix's, if she liked. No. He
wasn't attacking the cause of Suffrage. Women could have the vote
and welcome so far as he was concerned: they couldn't be greater
fools than the men, and they were probably less corrupt. He himself
never remembered voting in his life, so Honoria was no worse off
than her husband. But he drew the line in his children's friends at
the daughter of a....

Here Honoria to avoid hearing something she could not forgive put
her plump hand over his bristly mouth. He kissed it and somehow she
couldn't take the high tone she had at first intended. She simply
said "she would see about it" and met the difficulty by giving up
her suffrage parties for a bit and attending Lady Maud's instead;
where you met not only poor Vivie, but--had she been in London and
guaranteed reformed and _rangee_--you might have met Vivie's mothe