This thought occurs to Mrs. Slade at the end of a meandering comment on the differences between Barbara and Jenny’s personalities, and the surprising fact that two staid and respectable people like the Ansleys should have produced a child as unconventional as Barbara. In this moment, as at other points in the conversation, Mrs. Ansley uses her knitting as a shield against the unpleasantness of her interaction with Mrs. Slade. As Mrs. Slade veers uncomfortably close to the sensitive subject of her daughter—who, of course, is not the product of her marriage with Horace Ansley, but of her affair with…