Mrs. Craddock. W. Somerset Maugham

      Miss Glover looked at her with some want of intelligence. But it was not to be expected that Miss Ley could explain before making the affair a good deal more complicated.

      "And how is Bertha?" asked Miss Glover, whose conversation was chiefly concerned with inquiries about mutual acquaintance.

      "Oh, of course, she's in the seventh heaven of delight."

      "Oh!" said Miss Glover, not understanding at all what Miss Ley meant.

      She was somewhat afraid of the elder lady. Even though her brother Charles said he feared she was worldly, Miss Glover could not fail to respect a woman who had lived in London and on the continent, who had met Dean Farrar and seen Miss Marie Corelli.

      "Of course," she said, "Bertha is young, and naturally high spirited."

      "Well, I'm sure, I hope she'll be happy."

      "You must be very anxious about her future, Miss Ley." Miss Glover found her hostess's observations simply cryptic, and, feeling foolish, blushed a fiery red.

      "Not at all; she's her own mistress, and as able-bodied and as reasonably-minded as most young women. But, of course, it's a great risk."

      "I'm very sorry, Miss Ley," said the vicar's sister, in such distress as to give her friend certain qualms of conscience, "but I really don't understand. What is a great risk?"

      "Matrimony, my dear."

      "Is Bertha going to be married? Oh, dear Miss Ley, let me congratulate you. How happy and proud you must be!"

      "My dear Miss Glover, please keep calm. And if you want to congratulate anybody, congratulate Bertha—not me."

      "But I'm so glad, Miss Ley. To think of dear Bertha getting married; Charles will be so pleased."

      "It's to Mr. Edward Craddock," drily said Miss Ley, interrupting these transports.

      "Oh!" Miss Glover's jaw dropped and she changed colour; then, recovering herself: "You don't say so!"

      "You seem surprised, dear Miss Glover," said the elder lady, with a thin smile.

      "I am surprised. I thought they scarcely knew one another; and besides—" Miss Glover stopped, with embarrassment.

      "And besides what?" inquired Miss Ley, sharply.

      "Well, Miss Ley, of course Mr. Craddock is a very good young man and I like him, but I shouldn't have thought him a suitable match for Bertha."

      "It depends upon what you mean by a suitable match."

      "I was always hoping Bertha would marry young Mr. Branderton of the Towers."

      "Hm!" said Miss Ley, who did not like the neighbouring squire's mother, "I don't know what Mr. Branderton has to recommend him beyond the possession of four or five generations of particularly stupid ancestors and two or three thousand acres which he can neither let nor sell."

      "Of course Mr. Craddock is a very worthy young man," added Miss Glover, who was afraid she had said too much. "If you approve of the match no one else can complain."

      "I don't approve of the match, Miss Glover, but I'm not such a fool as to oppose it. Marriage is always a hopeless idiocy for a woman who has enough money of her own to live upon."

      "It's an institution of the Church, Miss Ley," replied Miss Glover, rather severely.

      "Is it?" retorted Miss Ley. "I always thought it was an arrangement to provide work for the judges in the Divorce Court."

      To this Miss Glover very properly made no answer.

      "Do you think they'll be happy together?"

      "I think it very improbable," said Miss Ley.

      "Well, don't you think it's your duty—excuse my mentioning it, Miss Ley—to do something?"

      "My dear Miss Glover, I don't think they'll be more unhappy than most married couples; and one's greatest duty in this world is to leave people alone."

      "There I cannot agree with you," said Miss Glover, bridling. "If duty was not more difficult than that there would be no credit in doing it."

      "Ah, my dear, your idea of a happy life is always to do the disagreeable thing: mine is to gather the roses—with gloves on, so that the thorns should not prick me."

      "That's not the way to win the battle, Miss Ley. We must all fight."

      "My dear Miss Glover!" said Bertha's aunt.

      She fancied it a little impertinent for a woman twenty years younger than herself to exhort her to lead a better life. But the picture of that poor, ill-dressed creature fighting with a devil, cloven-footed, betailed and behorned, was as pitiful as it was comic; and with difficulty Miss Ley repressed an impulse to argue and to startle a little her estimable friend.

      But at that moment Dr. Ramsay came in. He shook hands with both ladies.

      "I thought I'd look in to see how Bertha was," he said.

      "Poor Mr. Craddock has another adversary," remarked Miss Ley. "Miss Glover thinks I ought to take the affair seriously."

      "I do indeed," said Miss Glover.

      "Ever since I was a young girl," said Miss Ley, "I've been trying not to take things seriously, and I'm afraid now I'm hopelessly frivolous."

      The contrast between this assertion and Miss Ley's prim manner was really funny, but Miss Glover saw only something quite incomprehensible.

      "After all," added Miss Ley, "nine marriages out of ten are more or less unsatisfactory. You say young Branderton would have been more suitable; but really a string of ancestors is no particular assistance to matrimonial felicity, and otherwise I see no marked difference between him and Edward Craddock. Mr. Branderton has been to Eton and Oxford, but he conceals the fact with very great success. Practically he's just as much a gentleman-farmer as Mr. Craddock; but one family is working itself up and the other is working itself down. The Brandertons represent the past and the Craddocks the future; and though I detest reform and progress, so far as matrimony is concerned I prefer myself the man who founds a family to the man who ends it. But, good Heavens! you're making me sententious."

      It was curious how opposition was making Miss Ley almost a champion of Edward Craddock.

      "Well," said the doctor, in his heavy way, "I'm in favour of every one sticking to his own class. Nowadays, whoever a man is he wants to be the next thing better; the labourer apes the tradesman, the tradesman apes the professional man."

      "And the professional man is worst of all, dear doctor," said Miss Ley, "for he apes the noble lord, who seldom affords a very admirable example. And the amusing thing is that each set thinks itself quite as good as those above, while harbouring profound contempt for all below. In fact the only members of society who hold themselves in proper estimation are the servants. I always think that the domestics of gentlemen's houses in South Kensington are several degrees less odious than their masters."

      This was not a subject which Miss Glover or Dr. Ramsay could discuss, and there was a momentary pause.

      "What single point can you bring in favour of this marriage?" asked the doctor, suddenly.

      Miss Ley looked at him as if she were thinking, then, with a dry smile: "My dear doctor, Mr. Craddock is so matter of fact—the moon will never rouse him to poetic ecstasies."

      "Miss Ley!" said the parson's sister, in a tone of entreaty.

      Miss Ley glanced from one to the other. "Do you want my serious opinion?" she asked, rather more gravely than usual. "The girl loves him, my dear doctor. Marriage, after all, is such a risk that only passion makes it worthwhile."

      Miss Glover looked up uneasily at the word passion.

      "Yes, I know what you all think in England," said Miss Ley, catching the glance and its meaning. "You expect people to marry from every reason except the proper one—and that is the instinct of reproduction."

      "Miss