But this perception was
swept out of sight, like everything else, in the singleness of her
conviction: "Judith must know! Judith must know!"
There was, however, no struggle with Aunt Victoria in the morning.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith, encountering the same passionate outcry,
recognized an irresistible force when she encountered it; recognized
it, in fact, soon enough to avoid the long-drawn-out acrimony of
discussion into which a less intelligent woman would inevitably have
plunged; recognized it almost, but not quite, in time to shut off from
Sylvia's later meditations certain startling vistas down which she
had now only fleeting glimpses. "Very well, my dear," said Mrs.
Marshall-Smith, her cherished clarity always unclouded by small
resentments,--"very well, we will trust in your judgment rather than
my own. I don't pretend to understand present-day girls, though I
manage to be very fond of one of them. Judith is your sister. You will
do, of course, what you think is right. It means, of course, Judith
being what she is, that she will instantly cast him off; and Arnold
being what he is, that means that he will drink himself into delirium
tremens in six months. His father ..." She stopped short, closing with
some haste the door to a vista, and poured herself another cup of
coffee. They were having breakfast in her room, both in negligee
and lacy caps, two singularly handsome representatives of differing
generations.
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