“Dissolute people? People with no sense of conduct or duty? I’ve never met them. Giles has never, I am sure, met them before. I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Bradley, and her drawing-room seemed to be saying that it did not understand either;—the Watts’s “Love and Life” and “Love and Death,” the bowls of primroses picked by Jack and Francis, the crétonne covers, and the crayon drawing of Mrs. Bradley’s grandmother, a dove-eyed lady with lace tied over her head and a cameo brooch. “I’ve met them,” said Lady Mary with sad equanimity. “I’ve cared very much for several women who were, alas, in that sense, dissolute. Only they were more fortunate than madame Vervier; or more discreet. They’ve not been dissolute openly. So one hasn’t had to lose them.” “And one’s sons can marry their daughters,” said Giles. His mind was occupied by no anger against Lady Mary; only by that grief on madame Vervier’s account; and on Alix’s. Lady Mary he felt that he liked; much as he liked—it was the strangest feeling—madame Vervier. Lady Mary, too, was straight; she, too, was magnanimous; and, her eyes on his, she was liking him, liking him even while, not yielding an inch, she answered: “Exactly. One’s sons can marry their daughters. The difference couldn’t be put more clearly.” And she went on, reminding him more and more of madame Vervier, “Some things fit in and some things don’t. Women who have kept their place, fit; women who have lost it, don’t. It’s very harsh; it’s very hypocritical, you will say, Giles; but it is the only way in which a civilized society can protect itself. It’s impossible to judge each case on its own merits; so rules are made and the people who transgress them pay the penalty. It isn’t really that they are put out; they put themselves out. One pretends about them as long as they allow one to go on pretending. And when it comes to the sons and daughters;—young people don’t realize how horrid, how crippling, simple awkwardness can be. How awkward, for instance, to have a mother-in-law you couldn’t possibly, ever, invite to the house; how awkward to have babies to whom you’ve given a _demi-mondaine_ for a grandmother. It becomes too difficult. One wants to spare one’s children such difficulty.” “And what does one want to spare Alix?” Giles asked. With all his liking, with all her grace, her frankness, her resolve not to hurt, he was feeling for Lady Mary the same repudiation that he had felt for the ladies of the chalet—the people who connived and had no right to reject. Lady Mary thought for a moment before saying: “Alix can marry someone who doesn’t mind.”