Upton and Miss Bocock? I'm sure that they will be eager to hear of
this new peace committee of ours and zestful to help on the cause."
Mr. Potts rather sulkily said that he would stay and talk to Mrs. Upton and
Miss Bocock about the committee, and Imogen felt that it was in a manner of
atonement to him for her monopolization of a lustrous past that Mrs. Potts
presently, as they began the steep ascent along a winding, mossy path, told
Sir Basil that her husband, too, knew the responsibility and burden of
"blood." And as, for a moment, they went before her, Imogen fancied that
she heard the murmur of quite a new great name casting its agis about Mr.
Potts. Very spiritual people could, she reflected, become strangely
mendacious when borne along on the wings of ardor and exaltation.
Mrs. Potts's presence was really quite intolerable, and, as she walked
behind her and listened to her murmur, Imogen bethought her of an amusing,
though rather ruthless, plan of elimination. Imogen was very capable of
ruthlessness when circumstances demanded it. Turning, therefore, suddenly
to the right, she led them into a steep and rocky path that, as she well
knew, would eventually prove impassable to Mrs. Potts's short legs and
stiff, fat person. Indeed, Mrs. Potts soon began to pant and sigh. Her
recital of the family annals became disconnected; she paused to take off
and rub her eyeglasses and presently asked, in extenuated tones, if this
were the usual path to the laurel.
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