It was generally felt that to such women as Mrs. MacAnder
should we look for the perpetuation and increase of our best type of
woman. She had never had any children.
If there was one thing more than another that she could not stand it was
one of those soft women with what men called 'charm' about them, and for
Mrs. Soames she always had an especial dislike.
Obscurely, no doubt, she felt that if charm were once admitted as
the criterion, smartness and capability must go to the wall; and she
hated--with a hatred the deeper that at times this so-called charm
seemed to disturb all calculations--the subtle seductiveness which she
could not altogether overlook in Irene.
She said, however, that she could see nothing in the woman--there was no
'go' about her--she would never be able to stand up for herself--anyone
could take advantage of her, that was plain--she could not see in fact
what men found to admire!
She was not really ill-natured, but, in maintaining her position after
the trying circumstances of her married life, she had found it so
necessary to be 'full of information,' that the idea of holding her
tongue about 'those two' in the Park never occurred to her.
And it so happened that she was dining that very evening at Timothy's,
where she went sometimes to 'cheer the old things up,' as she was wont
to put it.
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