Mrs. Hilary stood looking down at the old shrunk figure, shaking a little as she stood, knowing that she must be patient and calm.

“You will please allow me to judge.  You will please let me take the steps I think necessary to help my child.  I know that you have no confidence in my judgment or my tact; you’ve always shown that plainly enough, and done your best to teach my children the same view of me....”

Grandmama put up her hand, meaning that she could not stand, neither she nor her heart could stand, a scene.  Mrs. Hilary broke off.  For once she did not want a scene either.  In these days she found what vent was necessary for her emotional system in her interviews with Mr. Cradock.

“I daresay you mean well, mother.  But in this matter I must be the judge.  I am a mother first and foremost.  It is the only thing that life has left for me to be.” (Scarcely a daughter, she meant:  that was made too difficult for her; you would almost imagine that the office was not wanted.)

She turned to the writing table.

“First of all I shall write to Rosalind, and tell her what I think of her and her abominable gossip.”

She began to write.

Grandmama sat shrunk and old and tired in her chair.

Mrs. Hilary’s pen scratched over the paper, telling Rosalind what she thought.

“Dear Rosalind,” she wrote, “I was very much surprised at your letter.  I do not know why you should trouble to repeat to me these ridiculous stories about Nan.  You cannot suppose that I am likely to care either what you or any of your friends are saying about one of my children....”  And so on.  One knows the style.  It eases the mind of the writer and does not deceive the reader.  When the reader is Rosalind Hilary it amuses her vastly.

4

Next day, at three p.m., Mrs. Hilary told Mr. Cradock all about it.  Mr. Cradock was not in the least surprised.  Nor had he the slightest, not the remotest doubt that Nan and Stephen Lumley were doing what Mrs. Hilary called living in sin, what he preferred to call obeying the natural ego.  (After all, as any theologian would point out, the terms are synonymous in a fallen world.)

“I must have your advice,” Mrs. Hilary said.  “You must tell me what line to take with her.”

“Shall you,” Mr. Cradock enquired, thoughtful and intelligent, “find your daughter in a state of conflict?”

Mrs. Hilary spread her hands helplessly before her.

“I know nothing; nothing.”

“A very great deal,” said Mr. Cradock, “depends on that.  If she is torn between the cravings of the primitive ego and the inhibitions put upon these cravings by the conventions of society—­if, in fact, her censor, her endopsychic censor, is still functioning....”

“Oh, I doubt if Nan’s got an endopsychic censor.  She is so lawless always.”

“Every psyche has a censor.”  Mr. Cradock was firm.  “Regarded, of course, by the psyche with very varying degrees of respect.  Well, what I mean to say is, if your daughter is in a state of conflict, with forces pulling her both ways, her case will be very much easier to deal with than if she has let her primitive ego so take possession of the situation that she feels in a state of harmony.  In the former case, you will only have to strengthen the forces which are opposing her sexual craving....”