If Lord
Valleys was the body of the aristocratic machine, Lady Casterley was the
steel spring inside it. All her life studiously unaffected and simple in
attire; of plain and frugal habit; an early riser; working at
something or other from morning till night, and as little worn-out at
seventy-eight as most women of fifty, she had only one weak spot--and
that was her strength--blindness as to the nature and size of her place
in the scheme of things. She was a type, a force.
Wonderfully well she went with the room in which they were dining, whose
grey walls, surmounted by a deep frieze painted somewhat in the style
of Fragonard, contained many nymphs and roses now rather dim; with the
furniture, too, which had a look of having survived into times not its
own. On the tables were no flowers, save five lilies in an old silver
chalice; and on the wall over the great sideboard a portrait of the late
Lord Casterley.
She spoke:
"I hope Miltoun is taking his own line?"
"That's the trouble. He suffers from swollen principles--only wish he
could keep them out of his speeches."
"Let him be; and get him away from that woman as soon as his election's
over. What is her real name?"
"Mrs. something Lees Noel."
"How long has she been there?"
"About a year, I think."
"And you don't know anything about her?"
Lord Valleys raised his shoulders.
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