defy him?

She had not told him a word when the yearly cricket-match came on at
Lord's between the public schools, though Sam had already gone back
to Aldbrickham. Mrs. Twycott felt stronger than usual: she went to
the match with Randolph, and was able to leave her chair and walk
about occasionally. The bright idea occurred to her that she could
casually broach the subject while moving round among the spectators,
when the boy's spirits were high with interest in the game, and he
would weigh domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the
day's victory. They promenaded under the lurid July sun, this pair,
so wide apart, yet so near, and Sophy saw the large proportion of
boys like her own, in their broad white collars and dwarf hats, and
all around the rows of great coaches under which was jumbled the
debris of luxurious luncheons; bones, pie-crusts, champagne-bottles,
glasses, plates, napkins, and the family silver; while on the coaches
sat the proud fathers and mothers; but never a poor mother like her.
If Randolph had not appertained to these, had not centred all his
interests in them, had not cared exclusively for the class they
belonged to, how happy would things have been! A great huzza at some
small performance with the bat burst from the multitude of relatives,
and Randolph jumped wildly into the air to see what had happened.
Sophy fetched up the sentence that had been already shaped; but she
could not get it out. The occasion was, perhaps, an inopportune one.
The contrast between her story and the display of fashion to which
Randolph had grown to regard himself as akin would be fatal. She
awaited a better time.

It was on an evening when they were alone in their plain suburban
residence, where life was not blue but brown, that she ultimately