"You don't
understand, my dear. Do I want to do the elder generation any damage? Not
at all! But it is time the elder generation withdrew to the chimney-corner
and gave us our rights! You think that ungrateful--disrespectful? Good
heavens! What do we _care_ about the people, our contemporaries, with
whom we are always fighting and scuffling in what we are pleased to call
_action_? The people who matter to us are the people who rest us--and
calm us--and bind up our wounds. If instead of finding a woman to argue
and wrestle with I had found just a mother here, knitting by the fire"--he
threw out a hand toward Lady Coryston's empty chair--"with time to smile
and think and jest--with no ax to grind--and no opinions to push--do you
think I shouldn't have been at her feet--her slave, her adorer? Besides,
the older generation have ground their axes, and pushed their opinions,
long enough--they have had thirty years of it! We should be the dancers
now, and they the wall-flowers. And they won't play the game!"
"Don't pretend that you and your mother could ever have played any
game--together--Corry," said Sir Wilfrid, sharply.
Coryston looked at him queerly, good-humoredly.
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