long years it had
been let to strangers, and after that the foreboding that it would be
her doom had kept her from the abasement of it. She had felt that she
should see it soon enough, but Fleda (who was careful not to betray to
her that Mona had seen it and had been gratified) knew her reasons for
believing that the maiden aunt's principles had had much in common with
the principles of Waterbath. The only thing, in short, that she would
ever have to do with the objets d'art of Ricks would be to turn them out
into the road. What belonged to her at Poynton, as Owen said, would
conveniently mitigate the void resulting from that demonstration.

The exchange of observations between the friends had grown very direct
by the time Fleda asked Mrs. Gereth whether she literally meant to shut
herself up and stand a siege, or whether it was her idea to expose
herself, more informally, to be dragged out of the house by constables.
"Oh, I prefer the constables and the dragging!" the heroine of Poynton
had answered. "I want to make Owen and Mona do everything that will be
most publicly odious." She gave it out that it was her one thought now
to force them to a line that would dishonor them and dishonor the
tradition they embodied, though Fleda was privately sure that she had
visions of an alternative policy. The strange thing was that, proud and
fastidious all her life, she now showed so little distaste for the
world's hearing of the squabble. What had taken place in her above all
was that a long resentment had ripened. She hated the effacement to
which English usage reduced the widowed mother: she had discoursed of it
passionately to Fleda; contrasted it with the beautiful homage paid in
other countries to women in that position, women no better than herself,
whom she had seen acclaimed and enthroned, whom she had known and
envied; made in short as little as possible a secret of the injury, the
bitterness she found in it. The great wrong Owen had done her was not
his "taking up" with Mona--that was disgusting, but it was a detail, an
accidental form: it was his failure from the first to understand what it
was to have a mother at all, to appreciate the beauty and sanctity of
the character. She was just his mother as his nose was just his nose,
and he had never had the least imagination or tenderness or gallantry
about her. One's mother, gracious heaven, if one were the kind of fine
young man one ought to be, the only kind Mrs. Gereth c