II

as they behave to people. When they are by themselves they can only go on mincing quietly, waiting for their next public appearance. When they are not talking they wait in an attitude, as if they were talking; ready to behave. Always on guard. Perhaps that was what Mr. Wilson meant when he said it was the business of women to be the custodians of manners.⁠ ⁠… Their “sense of good form, and their critical and selective faculties.” Then he had no right to be contemptuous of them.⁠ ⁠… “Donald Braden⁠ ⁠… lying across the dinner table⁠ ⁠… a drink sodden hull, swearing that he would never again go to a dinner-party where there were no ladies”⁠ ⁠… “Good talk and particularly good stories are not expected of women, at dinner tables. It’s their business to steer the conversation and head it off if it gets out of bounds.”⁠ ⁠… To simper and watch, while the men were free to be themselves, and then step in if they went beyond bounds. In other words to head the men off if they talked “improperly”; thus showing their knowledge of improprieties⁠ ⁠… “tactfully” ignoring them and leading on to something else with a gracious pose. Those were the moments when the improprieties streamed from their hair.⁠ ⁠… Somebody saying ssh, superior people talking together, modern friends-in-council, a week end in a beautiful house, subjects on the menu, are you high church or low church, the gleam of a woman’s body through water. “Ssh.” Why? ⁠ ⁠…