record to keep criticism consistent. He had pre
sented his profile on system, having, goodness
knew, nothing else to present nothing at all to
full-face the world with, no imagination of the pro
priety of living and minding his business. Criticism
had remained on Aunt Maud's part consistent
enough; she was not a person to regard such pro
ceedings as less of a mistake for having acquired
more of the privilege of pathos. She had not been
forgiving, and the only approach she made to over
looking them was by overlooking with the sur
viving delinquent the solid little phalanx that now
represented them. Of the two sinister ceremonies
that she lumped together, the marriage and the in
terment, she had been present at the former, just
as she had sent Marian, before it, a liberal cheque;
but this had not been for her more than the shadow
of an admitted link with Mrs. Condrip's course.
She disapproved of clamorous children for whom
there was no prospect; she disapproved of weep
ing widows who couldn't make their errors good;
and she had thus put within Marian's reach one of
the few luxuries left when so much else had gone,
an easy pretext for a constant grievance. Kate
Croy remembered well what their mother, in a dif
ferent quarter, had made of it; and it was Marian's
marked failure to pluck the fruit of resentment that
committed them, as sisters, to an almost equal fel
lowship in abjection. If the theory was that, yes,
alas, one of the pair had ceased to be noticed, but

[[39]]

p038 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p039w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p040

v?