Why were they amused? It seemed a very rational and logical argument.
“The tone in the house will not be conducive to it,” Lady Cordelia said.
“Goodness, the tone,” Miss Mayton said. “I’m manly, no I’m even more manly, wait I will be manlier still! Before you know it, somebody has broken a bone or caused a ghastly offense.”
Sir Matthew rubbed his chin. “I think I begin to see what you say. It has been a thing in my house that I am both cognizant of and incognizant of. I am not the same man I was when I married, though I could hardly tell you how it happened.”
Lady Cordelia and Miss Mayton nodded approvingly.
“And then!” Sir Matthew said, seeming as if an idea had just hit him like a lightning bolt. “And then, there is this thing my lady says that I had not ever really noticed…but now I think of it, that phrase has guided me quite well all these years.”
“What is the phrase?” Mr. Genterly said in a whisper.
“Well, I’ll say something or other, some opinion, and she’ll just smile and say, ‘Perhaps keep that just between us.’ And so I do keep it between us. Often, time will pass and I’ll think to myself,What a stupid opinion, I’m glad I didn’t blather on about it at my club.”
“Gad,” Mr. Genterly said. “My wife says, ‘You will see you do not mean it when you’ve had your dinner.’ It makes me pause, even when dinner does not seem to have any material effect.”
The other gentlemen nodded, as if they heard some version of the phrase in their own houses.
“So you theorize, Lady Cordelia,” Sir Matthew said, “that it was never a question of whether a man can be his own judge, but that it is a foolhardy quest. Good judgment is a soup that will not come out right if it does not contain two ingredients, rather than one. It must depend upon both the male and female point of view. Or tone, as you called it.”
“I fear you have said it far more eloquently than I ever could have, Sir Matthew,” Lady Cordelia said. “I simply feel what I feel.”
“This is a thing both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas did not consider!” Mr. Genterly said, all enthusiasm. “How on earth did they miss it?”
Howhadthey missed it? Was it true to begin? Percival thought he had no way of knowing, as he did live alone. There was no woman in the house to tell him a phrase if his opinions had veered off the road.
What if his opinions had done just that but he was blinded to them? After all, Lady Hightower had written him a letter about it.
“Harveston,” Sir William said, “will you weigh in with an opinion on this idea?”
“I am afraid I do not possess the information to fully form an opinion,” Percival said. “I believe I will stay quiet and take in what I hear. Sometimes, one is the debater, and sometimes one is the student.”
*
Cordelia had practicallyskipped out of Lord Harveston’s house. She had been trepidatious when Mr. Haventops suggested her group of ladies be split up to join the other groups. She had not a thing to say about Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.
She had felt a distinct and growing sense of unease regarding Mr. Haventops.
But then, a rather marvelous thing had happened. Mr. Haventops had set out to embarrass her and her aunt. She’d seen that had been his plan all along.
She’d realized that she’d known it before she’d known it. That had given her confidence to express her views, despite those views not coming out of a book.
Cordelia had been certain Mr. Haventops lived alone. No gentleman became such a curmudgeon unless left to his own devices for too long a time.
The other gentlemen had seemed fascinated that she’d known it, and then further interested in her ideas.
Goodness, they even wondered how Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas had missed such a point.
And then Lord Harveston, putting himself forward as a student ready to learn from her!
It was all very gratifying. Lord Harveston had been very gratifying.
There had even been a moment, as the conversation went on, when he’d gone to fetch her a glass of wine and their hands had brushed one another in the exchange.
It had been lightning on the horizon. That feeling when the air is filled with a charge of what was coming and the hair on one’s arms stood up.
Had he done it on purpose? She could not be certain, but she knew from her sisters that it was an age-old gambit. Was he flirting?
