Those feminine minds, going with
intuitive swiftness to the core of anything which affected their own
males, had already grasped the fact that the rumour would, as it were,
chain a man of Miltoun's temper to this woman.
But they were walking on such a thin crust of facts, and there was so
deep a quagmire of supposition beneath, that talk was almost painfully
difficult. Never before perhaps had each of these four women realized so
clearly how much Miltoun--that rather strange and unknown grandson,
son, and brother--counted in the scheme of existence. Their suppressed
agitation was manifested in very different ways. Lady Casterley, upright
in her chair, showed it only by an added decision of speech, a continual
restless movement of one hand, a thin line between her usually smooth
brows. Lady Valleys wore a puzzled look, as if a little surprised that
she felt serious. Agatha looked frankly anxious. She was in her quiet
way a woman of much character, endowed with that natural piety, which
accepts without questioning the established order in life and religion.
The world to her being home and family, she had a real, if gently
expressed, horror of all that she instinctively felt to be subversive
of this ideal. People judged her a little quiet, dull, and narrow; they
compared her to a hen for ever clucking round her chicks.
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