If Hermy was here in October, she would otter-hunt all
morning and snore all afternoon, and be in the best of tempers, but the
August visit required more careful steering. Yet the prospect of being
lean and young and internally untroubled was wonderfully tempting.
"But couldn't he be my Guru as well?" he asked.
Quite suddenly and by some demoniac possession, a desire that had been
only intermittently present in Mrs Quantock's consciousness took full
possession of her, a red revolutionary insurgence hoisted its banner.
Why with this stupendous novelty in the shape of a Guru shouldn't she
lead and direct Riseholme instead of Lucia? She had long wondered why
darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary
illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of
exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's
old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that
she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight
Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak
the omission by saying that they resembled eleven o'clock in the
morning and 3 p.m. And Mrs Quantock had often suspected that she did
not read one quarter of the books she talked about, and that she got up
subjects in the Encyclopaedia, in order to make a brave show that
covered essential ignorance.
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