But she was daughterless
herself; her family feeling was strong; and Mary's society was an old
and pleasant habit one could ill have parted with. In her company,
moreover, Mary was at her best.
Elizabeth Tranmore never discussed her daughter-in-law with her cousin.
Loyalty to William forbade it, no less than a strong sense of family
dignity. For Mary had spoken once--immediately after the
engagement--with energy--nay, with passion; prophesying woe and
calamity. Thenceforward it was tacitly agreed between them that all
root-and-branch criticism of Kitty and her ways was taboo. Mary was,
indeed, on apparently good terms with her cousin's wife. She dined
occasionally at the Ashes', and she and Kitty met frequently under the
wing of Lady Tranmore. There was no cordiality between them, and Kitty
was often sharply or sulkily certain that Mary was to be counted among
those hostile forces with which, in some of her moods, the world seemed
to her to bristle. But if Mary kept, in truth, a very sharp tongue for
many of her intimates on the subject of Kitty, Lady Tranmore at least
was determined to know nothing about it.
On this particular evening, however, Lady Tranmore's self-control failed
her, for the first time in three years.
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