Alfred and his mother were Thorpes--that is to say,
people who necessarily had their own way. Their domination
was stained by none of the excesses which had rendered the
grandfather intolerable. Their surface temper was in truth
almost sluggishly pacific. Underneath, however, ugly currents
and sharp rocks were well known to have a potential
existence--and it was the mission of the Dabneys to see
that no wind of provocation unduly stirred these depths.
Worse even than these possibilities of violence, however,
so far as every-day life was concerned, was the strain
of obstinacy which belonged to the Thorpe temper.
A sort of passive mulishness it was, impervious to argument,
immovable under the most sympathetic pressure,
which particularly tried the Dabney patience.
It seemed to Julia now, as she interposed her soothing
influence between these jarring forces, that she
had spent whole years of her life in personal
interventions of this sort.
"Oh yes they will," she repeated, and warned her brother
into the background with a gesture half-pleading
half-peremptory. "We are your children, and we're
not bad or undutiful children at all, and I'm sure
that when you think it all over, mamma, you'll see
that it would be absurd to let anything come between you and us."
"How could I help letting it come?" demanded the mother,
listlessly argumentative.
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