Chapters (30)
‘But that was just it – I was so certain that man would amuse you. He’s got a brilliant mind like – like what would appeal to you.’
‘I’m sure he has. But you see, he was much too clever for me that he only seemed to me dull. And I do still like books to be – what shall I say? – decent. Though I know it isn’t the thing to admit: you all have such pure minds … I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t look a bit penitent. Tell me – has Ronald got a very “pure mind”?’
‘Alarmingly,’ said Ronald’s mother. ‘But he’s learnt to respect my limitations.’
Sydney, who was herself at times conscious of these limitations – remotely, as in a dream – smiled at the thought of Ronald, a long-limbed, intense-looking adolescent she was unlikely to meet. Ronald was a long way away, in Germany. (She had put together her Ronald from two photographs his mother possessed: a blurred snapshot and a shadowy portrait-study.) One could smile over Ronald; to imagine him was not distressing; he was not among the demi-gods. It was amusing to see one’s own qualities in him pilloried in smiling maternal allusions. Ronald was ‘young’. Yet all this might not have counted so much in his favour if it had not seemed certain that Ronald was to remain in Germany.
‘I should like to meet Ronald,’ Sydney said benevolently. ‘And, by the way,’ she added, ‘I must bring back Tessa another book. Anything that’s bright and very loving, with a certain amount of illness in it, will do her beautifully, provided she doesn’t remember having read it before … Now you’re not to say I’m horrid about Tessa: she’s as much amused at her own taste in books as I am. She hasn’t got much time for novels now – she’s reading Baudouin.’
‘It would never do,’ said Mrs Kerr, ‘to bring back Mrs Bellamy one of your depressing books.’ She slipped an arm through Sydney’s for a moment as they turned together up a flight of cold steps to the library.