Another instance of Mrs Gould qualifying her knowledge of another's inner state, as above when talking of Captain Mitchell.

Allegorically the line is more complex, and the relation between Teresa and Nostromo might well lie outside Mrs Gould's comprehension. Teresa represented the voice of material benefit urging the People to throw off their servility and take care of themselves, a notion totally foreign to Mrs Gould's altruism, in which the People can only be uplifted from above. In Teresa's vision only the People could "save the children," i.e., provide materially for the future society, a socialist notion that again turns Mrs Gould's upper-class altruism on its ear.