He and Cecilia had “got on” from the first.  They had both desired to have one child—­no more; they had both desired to keep up with the times—­no more; they now both considered Hilary’s position awkward—­no more; and when Cecilia, in the special Jacobean bed, and taking care to let him have his sleep out first, had told him of this matter of the Hughs, they had both turned it over very carefully, lying on their backs, and speaking in grave tones.  Stephen was of opinion that poor old Hilary must look out what he was doing.  Beyond this he did not go, keeping even from his wife the more unpleasant of what seemed to him the possibilities.

Then, in the words she had used to Hilary, Cecilia spoke: 

“It’s so sordid, Stephen.”

He looked at her, and almost with one accord they both said: 

“But it’s all nonsense!”

These speeches, so simultaneous, stimulated them to a robuster view.  What was this affair, if real, but the sort of episode that they read of in their papers?  What was it, if true, but a duplicate of some bit of fiction or drama which they daily saw described by that word “sordid”?  Cecilia, indeed, had used this word instinctively.  It had come into her mind at once.  The whole affair disturbed her ideals of virtue and good taste—­that particular mental atmosphere mysteriously, inevitably woven round the soul by the conditions of special breeding and special life.  If, then, this affair were real it was sordid, and if it were sordid it was repellent to suppose that her family could be mixed up in it; but her people were mixed up in it, therefore it must be—­nonsense!

So the matter rested until Thyme came back from her visit to her grandfather, and told them of the little model’s new and pretty clothes.  When she detailed this news they were all sitting at dinner, over the ordering of which Cecilia’s loyalty had been taxed till her little headache came, so that there might be nothing too conventional to over-nourish Stephen or so essentially aesthetic as not to nourish him at all.  The man servant being in the room, they neither of them raised their eyes.  But when he was gone to fetch the bird, each found the other looking furtively across the table.  By some queer misfortune the word “sordid” had leaped into their minds again.  Who had given her those clothes?  But feeling that it was sordid to pursue this thought, they looked away, and, eating hastily, began pursuing it.  Being man and woman, they naturally took a different line of chase, Cecilia hunting in one grove and Stephen in another.

Thus ran Stephen’s pack of meditations: 

’If old Hilary has been giving her money and clothes and that sort of thing, he’s either a greater duffer than I took him for, or there’s something in it.  B.’s got herself to thank, but that won’t help to keep Hughs quiet.  He wants money, I expect.  Oh, damn!’

Cecilia’s pack ran other ways: