It was now Dorothy's turn to direct the conversation toward flowers, while the dowager endeavored to keep it personal.
"I've often thought," she began, "what a pity it was for you to cut yourself off so completely from your own family."
"I certainly shouldn't find them of any help to me now," said Dorothy.
"Well, I don't know. I think that a mother can always be helpful," the dowager argued. "I think it's a pity that you should have felt the necessity of eliminating your family like this. I dare say I was to blame in the first place, and I'm afraid that I gave you the impression that we were much more snobbish down here than we really are. Your impulse was natural in the circumstances, but I had hoped that I had been able to prove to you that my opposition was only directed against your profession, and you who know what Tony is will surely appreciate my alarm at the idea of his marrying merely to gratify himself at the moment. My own dear old mother was perhaps a little more sensitive than I am to old-fashioned ideas of rank. She belonged to a period when such opinions were widely spread in the society she frequented. I confess that since she died I have found myself inclining more and more every day to what would once have been called Red Radicalism. You know, I really can't help admiring some of the things that this dreadful government is trying to do." The epithet was so persistently applied by the county that for the dowager it had lost any independent significance; it was like calling a tradesman "dear sir."
Dorothy was tempted to ask the dowager if she did believe the account she had given of her family, but she felt that if she suggested even the possibility of such skepticism she should be admitting its justification. And then suddenly she had a profound regret that her mother had never seen Clare, had never trodden this ancient turf nor sat beneath those cedar-trees. If the dowager had extended the courtesy of breeding to accept those legends her daughter-in-law had spread about herself, her courtesy would certainly not be withheld from accepting that daughter-in-law's mother. The idea took shape; it positively would be jolly to invite her mother to stay for a month at Clare. Tony would not be bored; he would be away all the time.