I know Aldous thinks him unscrupulous in politics and everything else.

And then, just when you are worked to death, and have hardly a moment for your own affairs, to have a man of that type always at hand to spend odd times with your lady love--flattering her, engaging her in his ridiculous schemes, encouraging her in all the extravagances she has got her head twice too full of already, setting her against your own ideas and the life she will have to live--you will admit that it is not exactly soothing!" "Poor Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, thoughtfully, looking far ahead with her odd look of absent rigidity, which had in reality so little to do with a character essentially soft; "but you see he _did_ know all about her opinions.

And I don't think--no, I really don't think--I could speak to her." In truth, this woman of nearly seventy--old in years, but wholly young in temperament--was altogether under Marcella's spell--more at ease with her already than with most of her own children, finding in her satisfaction for a hundred instincts, suppressed or starved by her own environment, fascinated by the girl's friendship, and eagerly grateful for her visits.

Miss Raeburn thought it all both incomprehensible and silly.
"Apparently no one can!" cried that lady in answer to her friend's demurrer; "is all the world afraid of her ?" And she departed in wrath.

But she knew, nevertheless, that she was just as much afraid of Marcella as anybody else.