Stephen McKenna

“ Now, would you say I had taken leave of my senses if I suggested that I had some claim on Brackenbury and Spenworth? Does relationship count for nothing? Or gratitude? You shall hear! You remember that, when you left just before my operation, Brackenbury came in to see me. I had sent for him. I am not a nervous woman; but accidents do happen, and I wanted a last word with them all in case. . . just in case. . . Arthur never takes a thought for the future, and I told Brackenbury that, if anything did happen, he would be the real as well as the titular head of the family. ”

“ I said, “to advise or interfere with you or Ruth or your children. If—as I pray—Culroyd comes through unscathed, he has all the world before him, and you have only to see that he does not marry below his station. With Phyllida you must be more careful. She is young, attractive, well-dowered and a little, just a little headstrong. The war has made our girls quite absurdly romantic; any one in uniform, especially if he has been wounded. . . And you, who are rich, perhaps hardly realize as well as do we, who are poor, the tricks and crimes that a man will commit to marry a fortune. ”

“ When the war is over and if he is spared, it is essential that he should have independent means of some kind. It is pitiable that a man in his position. . . Do you not feel it—your own nephew? With the present prices, a thousand a year is little enough; but Arthur can do nothing to increase his directorships; and if my poor guidance and support are withdrawn—”
“What is supposed to be the matter with you?,” Spenworth interrupted.
“I can hardly discuss that with you,” I said.
“Well, Brackenbury told me—and Arthur told Brackenbury—,” he began. ”

“ I did indeed force my brother to make her come to Mount Street; but, if that preserves the convenances, it is the utmost that I have achieved. When the trouble breaks out, when we find her liée with some hopelessly unsuitable “temporary gentleman” . . . I? In a rash moment I allowed Brackenbury to make some trifling contribution to the cost of the girl’s bed and board: the result is that she treats me as a lodging-house-keeper. ”

“ I don’t mind sitting between a stockbroker and an actor, but it is a different thing altogether when you come to marriage. My boy has to be protected from the ordinary dangers and temptations; and, though I would do nothing to influence him, it would be highly satisfactory if he met some nice girl with a little money of her own. Naturally one would like to see the choice falling on some one in his own immediate world; but times are changing, and it would be regarded as old-fashioned prejudice if one made too strong a stand against the people who really are the only people with money ”

“ A prolonged strain always finds out the weak place: Arthur complaining that he had lost some of his directorships and that, with the war, he was being offered none to take their place; talk of selling the house in Mount Street, every corner filled with a wonderful memory of old happy days when the princess almost lived with me ”