Neither of those two women knew what
they wanted. It was only Edward who took a perfectly clear line,
and he was drunk most of the time. But, drunk or sober, he stuck
to what was demanded by convention and by the traditions of his
house. Nancy Rufford had to be exported to India, and Nancy
Rufford hadn't to hear a word of love from him. She was exported
to India and she never heard a word from Edward Ashburnham.
It was the conventional line; it was in tune with the tradition of
Edward's house. I daresay it worked out for the greatest good of
the body politic. Conventions and traditions, I suppose, work
blindly but surely for the preservation of the normal type; for the
extinction of proud, resolute and unusual individuals.
Edward was the normal man, but there was too much of the
sentimentalist about him; and society does not need too many
sentimentalists. Nancy was a splendid creature, but she had about
her a touch of madness. Society does not need individuals with
touches of madness about them. So Edward and Nancy found
themselves steamrolled out and Leonora survives, the perfectly
normal type, married to a man who is rather like a rabbit. For
Rodney Bayham is rather like a rabbit, and I hear that Leonora is
expected to have a baby in three months' time.
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