And the poor deserted little wife--" "She is NOT his wife," Aunt Celia interrupted.
"I've never heard anything so detestable!" Mrs.Hilbery wound up, striking her fist on the arm of her chair.

As she realized the facts she became thoroughly disgusted, although, perhaps, she was more hurt by the concealment of the sin than by the sin itself.

She looked splendidly roused and indignant; and Katharine felt an immense relief and pride in her mother.

It was plain that her indignation was very genuine, and that her mind was as perfectly focused upon the facts as any one could wish--more so, by a long way, than Aunt Celia's mind, which seemed to be timidly circling, with a morbid pleasure, in these unpleasant shades.
She and her mother together would take the situation in hand, visit Cyril, and see the whole thing through.
"We must realize Cyril's point of view first," she said, speaking directly to her mother, as if to a contemporary, but before the words were out of her mouth, there was more confusion outside, and Cousin Caroline, Mrs.Hilbery's maiden cousin, entered the room.

Although she was by birth an Alardyce, and Aunt Celia a Hilbery, the complexities of the family relationship were such that each was at once first and second cousin to the other, and thus aunt and cousin to the culprit Cyril, so that his misbehavior was almost as much Cousin Caroline's affair as Aunt Celia's.