 Chapter 17 In practical matters Mr. Pembroke was often a generous man. He offered Ricky a good salary, and insisted on paying Agnes as well. And as he housed them for nothing, and as Ricky would also have a salary from the school, the money question disappeared, if not forever, at all events for the present. I can work you in, he said, leave all that to me, and in a few days you shall hear from the headmaster. He shall create a vacancy, and once in we stand or fall together, I am resolved in that. Ricky did not like the idea of being worked in, but he was determined to raise no difficulties. It is so easy to be refined and high-minded when we have nothing to do. But the active, useful men cannot be equally particular. Ricky's program involved a change in values as well as a change of occupation. Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude, Mr. Pembroke continued. I do not advise you at present even to profess any interest in athletics or organization. When the headmaster writes, he will probably ask whether you are an all-around man. Boldly say no. A bold no is at times the best. Take your stand upon classics and general culture. Classics, a second in the tripose, general culture, a smattering of English literature, and less than a smattering of French. That is how we begin. Then we get to you a little post, say that of librarian, and so on until you are indispensable. Ricky laughed. The headmaster wrote, the reply was satisfactory, and into course the new life began. Sauston was already familiar to him, but he knew it as an amateur, and under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The school, a bland, gothic building, now showed as a fortress of learning, whose outworks were the boarding houses. Those straggling roads were full of the houses of the parents of the dayboys. These shops were in bounds, those out. How often had he passed Dunwood House? He had once confused it with its rival, Cedar View. Now he was to live there, perhaps for many years. On the left of the entrance, a large saffron drawing room, full of cozy corners and dumpy chairs. Here the parents would be received. On the right of the entrance a study, which he shared with Herbert. Here the boys would be cained, he hoped not often. In the hall a framed certificate praising the drains, the bust of Hermes, and a carved teak monkey holding out a salver. Some of the furniture had come from Shellthorpe. Some had been bought from Mr. Anderson, some of it was new. But throughout he recognized a certain decision of arrangement. Nothing in the house was accidental, or there merely for its own sake. He contrasted it with his room at Cambridge, which had been a jumble of things that he loved dearly and of things that he did not love at all. Now these also had come to Dunwood House, and had been distributed where each was seemingly. Surpersable to the drawing room, the photograph of Stockholm to the passage, his chair, his ink pot, and the portrait of his mother to the study. And then he contrasted it with the Ansel's house, to which their resolute ill-taste had given unity. He was extremely sensitive to the inside of a house, holding it an organism that expressed the thoughts, conscious and subconscious of its inmates. He was equally sensitive to places. He would compare Cambridge with Sauston and either with a third type of existence, to which, for want of a better name, he gave the name of Wiltshire. It must not be thought that he is going to waste his time. These contrasts and comparisons never took him long, and he never indulged in them until the serious business of the day was over. And as time passed he never indulged in them at all. The school returned at the end of January before he had been settled in a week. His health had improved, but not greatly, and he was nervous at the prospect of confronting the assembled house. All day long cabs had been driving up full of boys and bowler hats to beg for them, and Agnes had been superintending the numbering of the said hats, and the placing of them in cupboard since they would not be wanted till the end of the term. Each boy had, or should have had, a bag so that he need not unpack his box till the morrow. One boy had only a brown paper parcel tied with hairy string, and Ricky heard the firm pleasant voice say, but he'll bring a bag next term, and the submissive, yes, Mrs. Elliott, of the reply. In the passage he ran against the head boy who was alarmingly like an undergraduate. They looked at each other suspiciously and parted. Two minutes later he ran into another boy, and then into another, and began to wonder whether they were doing it on purpose, and if so whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on the noises grew louder, trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly little squawks, and the cubicles were assigned, and the bags unpacked, and the bathing arrangements posted up, and Herbert kept on saying, all this is informal, all this is informal, we shall meet the house at eight fifteen. And so at eight ten Ricky put on his cap and gown, hitherto symbols of pupillage, now to be symbols of dignity, the very cap and gown that Windrington had so recently hung upon the college fountain. Herbert, similarly attired, was waiting for him in their private dining room, where also said Agnes, ravenously devouring scrambled eggs. But you'll wear your hoods, she cried. Herbert considered, and then said she was quite right. He fetched his white silk, Ricky the fragment of rabbit's wool that marks the degree of B.A. Thus attired they proceeded through the bay's door. They were a little late, and the boys who were marshaled in the preparation room were getting uproarious, one forgetting how far his boys carried, shouted, Cave, here comes the welk! And another young devil yelled, the welks brought a pet with him. You mustn't mind, said Herbert kindly. We masters make a point of never minding nicknames, unless of course they are applied openly, in which case a thousand lines is not too much. Ricky assented, and they entered the preparation room just as the prefects had established order. Here Herbert took his seat on a high-legged chair while Ricky, like a queen consort, sat near him on a chair with somewhat shorter legs. Each chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert flung up the lid of his and then looked around the preparation room with a quick frown as if the contents had surprised him. So impressed was Ricky that he peeped sideways, but could only see a little blotting paper in the desk. Then he noticed that the boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They attended. The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling disdainfully in the back row, were ranged like counselors beneath a central throne. This was an innovation of Mr. Pembrokes. Carrithers, the head boy, sat in the middle with his arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had made the matron too bright. He nearly lost his colors in consequence. These two were grown up. Beside them sat Tousson, a saintly child in the spectacles, who had risen to this height by reason of his immense learning. He, like the others, was a school prefect. The house prefects, an inferior brand, were beyond and behind came the indistinguishable many. The faces all looked alike as yet except the face of one boy who was inclined to cry. School, said Mr. Pembrokes, slowly closing the lid of the desk. School is the world in miniature. Then he paused as a man well may who has made such a remark. It is not, however, the intention of this work to quote an opening address. Ricky, at all events, refused to be critical. Her bird's experience was far greater than his, and he must take his tone from him. Nor could anyone criticize the exhortations to be patriotic, athletic, learned, and religious that flowed like a four-part fugue from Mr. Pembrokes' mouth. He was a practised speaker. That is to say he held his audience's attention. He told them that this term, the second of his reign, was the term for Dunwood House. That it behooved every boy to labour during it for his house's honour, and through the house for the honour of the school. Taking a wider range he spoke of England, or rather of Great Britain, and of her continental foes. Portraits of empire builders hung on the wall and he pointed to them. He quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had broadened since the days of Shakespeare, who, for all his genius could only write of his country as, this fortress built by nature for herself against infection in the hand of war, this hazy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the Silver Sea. And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the preparation room and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then he paused, and in the silence came sob, sob, sob from a little boy who was regretting a villa in Guildford and his mother's half-acre of garden. The proceeding terminated with a broader patriotism of the school anthem recently composed by the organist, and it was Mr. Pembroke, and he only because he had the music, who gave the right intonation to, perish each laggard, let it not be said that Sosten, such within her walls, hath bred. Come, come, he said pleasantly, as they ended with harmonies in the style of Richard Strauss. This will never do. We must grapple with the anthem this term. You're as tuneful as, as day boys. Hardly laughed her, and then the whole house filed past them and shook hands. But how did it impress you? Herbert asked, as soon as they were back in their own part. Agnes had provided them with a tray of food. The meals were still anyhow, and she had to fly at once to see after the boys. I liked the look of them. I meant, rather, how did the house impress you as a house? I don't think I thought, said Ricky rather, nervously. It is not easy to catch the spirit of a thing at once. I only saw a roomful of boys. My dear Ricky, don't be so diffident. You are perfectly right. You only did see a roomful of boys, as yet there's nothing else to see. The house, like the school, lacks tradition. Look at Winchester. Look at the traditional rivalry between Eden and Harrow. Tradition is of incalculable importance. If a school is to have any status, why should Sauston be without? Yes, tradition is of incalculable value, and I envy those schools that have a natural connection with the past. Of course Sauston has a past, though not of the kind that you quite want. The sons of poor tradesmen went to it at first, so wouldn't its traditions be more likely to linger in the commercial school? He concluded nervously. You have a great deal to learn, a very great deal. Listen to me. Why has Sauston no traditions? His round rather foolish face assumed the expression of a conspirator. Bending over the mutton, he whispered, I can tell you why. Owing to the dayboys, how can traditions flourish in such soil? Picture the dayboys' life at home for meals, at home for preparation, at home for sleep, running home with every fanseed wrong. There are dayboys in your class, and mark my words, they will give you ten times as much trouble as the boarders. Late, slovenly, stopping away the slightest pretext. And then the letters from the parents. Why has my boy not been moved this term? Why has my boy been moved this term? I am a dissenter, and do not wish my boy to subscribe to the school mission. Can you let my boy off early to water the garden? Remember that I have been a dayboy housemaster, and try to infuse some spirit decor into them. It is practically impossible. They come as units, and units they remain. Worse, they infect the boarders. Their pestilential, critical, discontented attitude is spreading over the school. If I had my own way, he stopped somewhat abruptly. Was that why you laughed at their singing? Not at all, not at all. It is not my habit to set one section of the school against the other. After a little they went to the rounds. The boys were in bed now. Good night, called Herbert, standing in the corridor of the cubicles, and from behind each of the green curtains came the sound of a voice replying. Good night, sir. Good night. He observed into each dormitory. Then he went to the switch in the passage and plunged the whole house into darkness. Ricky lingered behind him, strangely impressed. In the morning those boys had been scattered over England, leading their own lives. Now for three months they must change everything. See new faces, accept new ideals. They like himself must endre a beneficent machine, and learn the value of a spirit decor. Good luck attend them. Good luck and a happy release. For his heart would have them nodding these cubicles and dormitories, but each in his own dear home, amongst faces and things that he knew. Next morning after chapel he made the acquaintance of his class. Towards that he felt very differently. A spirit decor was not expected of it. It was simply two dozen boys who were gathered together for the purpose of learning Latin. His duties and difficulties would not lie here. He was not required to provide it with an atmosphere. The scheme of work was already mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar words. Do you think that beautiful? he asked, and received the honest answer. No sir, I don't think I do. He met Herbert in high spirits in the quadrangle during the interval, but Herbert thought his enthusiasm rather amateurish and cautioned him. You must take care they don't get out of hand. I approve of a lively teacher, but discipline must be established first. I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I'm wrong over a point or don't know, I mean to tell them at once. Herbert shook his head. It's different if I was really a scholar, but I can't pose as one, can I? I know much more than the boys, but I know very little. Surely the honest thing is to be myself to them. Let them accept or refuse me as to that. That's the only attitude we shall any of us profit by in the end. Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed. There is, as you say, a higher attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, cannot we find a golden mean between them? What's that? said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall, spectacled man who greeted the newcomer kindly and took hold of his arm. What's that about the golden mean? Mr. Jackson? Mr. Elliot? Mr. Elliot? Mr. Jackson? said Herbert, who did not seem quite pleased. Ricky, have you a moment to spare me? But the humanists spoke to the young man about the golden mean and the pinch-back mean adding, you know the Greeks aren't broad church clergymen. They really aren't, in spite of much conflicting evidence. Boys will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened bishop, and something tells me that they are wrong. Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast, said Herbert. He makes the past live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present. And I am warning him against the humdrum past. That's another point, Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and most Romans were frightfully stupid. And if they disbelieve you, read Tessiphon with them or Valerius flakus. Whatever is that noise? It comes from your classroom, I think. Snapped the other master. So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little Tucson into the waste-paper basket. I always lock my classroom in the interval. Yes. And carry the key in my pocket. Ah, but Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Windrington's. He wrote to me about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to supper next Sunday? I am afraid, put on Herbert, that we poor house masters must deny ourselves festivities in term time. But may indeed come once, just once. May, my dear Jackson, my brother-in-law is not a baby. He decides for himself. Rikki naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, Herbert said, this is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. Windrington? I knew him at Cambridge. Let me explain how we stand, he continued, after a pause. Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I, why should I conceal it, have thrown in my lot with a party of progress? You will see how we suffer from him at the master's meetings. He has no talent for organization, and yet he is always inflicting his ideas on others. It was like his impertinence to dictate to you what authors you should read, and meanwhile, the sixth-form room, like a bear garden, and a school prefect being put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rikki, there is nothing to smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? It would be a case of quick march, if it was not for his brilliant intellect. That's why I say it's a little unfortunate. You will have very little in common, you and he. Rikki did not answer. He was very fond of Windrington, who was a quaint sensitive person, and he could not help being attracted by Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with official breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too, whether it is so very reactionary to contemplate the antique. It is true that I vote conservative. Pursued Mr. Pembroke, apparently confronting some objector. But why? Because the conservatives, rather than the liberals, stand for progress. One must not be misled by catch words. Didn't you want to ask me something? Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called Varden. Varden? Yes, there is. Drop on him heavily. He has broken the statutes of the school. He is attending as a day boy. The statutes provide that a boy must reside with his parents or guardians. He doesn't either. It must be stopped. You must tell the headmaster. Where does the boy live? At a certain Mrs. Ores, who has no connection with the school of any kind, it must be stopped. He must either enter a boarding house or go. But why should I tell? said Ricky. He remembered the boy, an unattractive person with protruding ears. It is the business of his housemaster. Housemaster? Exactly. Here we come back again. Who is now the day boy's housemaster? Jackson, once again, as if anything was Jackson's business. I handed the house back last term in a most flourishing condition. It has already gone to rack and ruin for the second time. To return to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up job. Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Ores are friends. Do you see? It all works round. I see. It does. Or might. The headmaster will never sanction it when it's put to him plainly. But why should I put it? said Ricky, twisting the ribbons of his gown round his fingers. Because you're the boy's his foremaster. Is that a reason? Of course it is. I only wondered whether. He did not like to say that he wondered whether he need do it his first morning. By some means or other you must find out. Of course you know already, but you must find out from the boy. I know. I have it. Where's his health certificate? He had forgotten it. Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it will be signed by Mrs. Ores and you must look at it and say or or Mrs. Ores or something to that effect and then the whole thing will come naturally out. The bell rang and they went in for the hour of school that concluded the morning. Varden brought his health certificate, a pompous document asserting that he had not suffered from roseola or kindred ailments in the holidays. And for a long time Ricky sat with it before him, spread open upon his desk. He did not quite like the job. It suggested intrigue and he had come to Sosten not to intrigue but to labor. Doubtless Herbert was right and Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Ores were wrong, but why could they not have it out among themselves? Then he thought, I am a coward and that's why I'm raising these objections. Call the boy up to him and it did all come out naturally more or less. Hitherto Varden had lived with his mother but she had left Sosten at Christmas and now he would live with Mrs. Ores. Mr. Jackson sir said it would be all right. Yes, yes, said Ricky, quite so. He remembered Herbert's dictum. Masters must present a united front if they do not the deluge. He sent the boy back to his seat and after school took the compromising health certificate to the headmaster. The headmaster was at that time easily excited by a breach of the Constitution. Parents or guardians, he reputed parents or guardians and flew with those words on his lips to Mr. Jackson. To say that Ricky was a cat's paw is to put it too strongly. Herbert was strictly honorable and never pushed him into an illegal or really dangerous position but there is no doubt that he would not otherwise have done. There was always some diplomatic corner that had to be turned, always something that he had to say or not to say. As the term wore on he lost his independence almost without knowing it. He had much to learn about boys and he learned not by direct observation for which he believed he was unfitted but by sedulous imitation of the more experienced masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with his pupils and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly but he cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He for personal intercourse substituted the safer personal influence and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly traps in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts while the master intact commends or corrects them. Originally Ricky had meant to help boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men. At Cambridge he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a subject in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another, not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority and for this reason the elder school master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. Formulae like kindly traps were not in Ricky's line so he abandoned these subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what was easy. In the house he did as Herbert did and referred all doubtful subjects to him. In his form oddly enough he became a martinet. It is so much simpler to be severe. He grasped the school regulations and insisted on prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of collective responsibility. When one boy was late he punished the whole form. I can't help it, he would say, as if he was a power of nature. As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own enthusiasms, finding that they distracted his attention and that while he throbbed to the music of Virgil the boys in the back row were getting unruly. But on the whole he liked his form work. He knew why he was there and Herbert did not overshadow him so completely. What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was amiss and had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man was kind and unselfish, more than that he was truly charitable and it was a real pleasure to him to give pleasure to others. Certainly he might talk too much about it afterwards but it was the doing not the talking that he really valued and benefactors of the sort were not too common. He was moreover diligent and conscientious, his heart was in his work and his adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was capable of affection, he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then what was amiss? Why in spite of all these qualities should Ricky feel that there was something wrong with him, nay that he was wrong as a whole, and that if the spirit of humanity should ever hold a judgment he would assuredly be classed among the goats? The answer at first sight appeared a graceless one, it was that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the ordinary sense, he had a business-like brain and acquired knowledge easily. But stupid in the important sense, his whole life was colored by a contempt of the intellect. That he had a tolerable intellect of his own was not the point, it is in what we value, not in what we have that the test of us resides. Now Ricky's intellect was not remarkable, he came to his worthier results rather by imagination and instinct than by logic. An argument confused him and he could with difficulty follow it even on paper. But he signed this no reason for satisfaction, and tried to make such use of his brain as he could, just as a weak athlete might lovingly exercise his body. Like a weak athlete too he loved to watch with exploits or rather the efforts of others, their efforts not so much to acquire knowledge as to dispel a little of the darkness by which we and all our acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge had taught him this, and he knew if for no other reason, that his time there had not been in vain. And Herbert's contempt for such efforts revolted him. He saw that for all his fine talk about a spiritual life he had but one test for things. Success. Success for the body in this life or for the soul in the life to come. And for this reason humanity and perhaps such other tribunals as there may be would assuredly reject him. CHAPTER 18 Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his union should have been emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained. The vague yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway of the world and fears, like poor Shelly, to undertake the longest journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment for granted. But as the term passed he knew that behind the yearning there remained a yearning, behind the drawn veil a veil that he could not draw. His wedding had been no mighty landmark. He would often wonder whether such and such a speech or incident came after it or before. Since that meeting in the Soho restaurant there had been so much to do. Close to buy, presents to thank for, a brief visit to a training college, a honeymoon as brief. In such a bustle what spiritual union could take place? Surely the dust would settle soon. In Italy at Easter he might perceive the infinities of love. But love had shown him its infinities already. Neither by marriage nor by any other device can men ensure themselves a vision, and Ricky's had been granted him three years before when he had seen his wife and a dead man clasped in each other's arms. She was never to be so real to him again. She ran about the house looking handsomer than ever. Her cheerful voice gave orders to the servants. As he sat in the study correcting compositions she would dart in and give him a kiss. Dear girl, he would murmur, with a glance at the rings on her hand. The tone of their marriage life was soon set. It was to be a frank, good fellowship, and before long he found it difficult to speak in a deeper key. One evening he made the effort. There had been more beauty than was usual at Sauston. The air was pure and quiet. Tomorrow the fog might be here. But today one said, It is like the country. Arm in arm they strolled in the side garden, stopping at times to notice the crocuses, or to wonder when the daffodils would flower. Suddenly he tightened his pressure and said, Darling, why don't you still wear earrings? Earrings! She laughed. My taste has improved, perhaps. So after all they never mentioned Gerald's name. But he hoped it was still dear to her. He did not want her to forget the greatest moment in her life. His love desired not ownership but confidence, and to a love so pure it does not seem terrible to come second. He valued emotion, not for itself, but because it is the only final path to intimacy. She, ever robust and practical, always discouraged him. She was not cold. She would willingly embrace him. But she hated being upset and would laugh or thrust him off when his voice grew serious. In this she reminded him of his mother. But his mother—he had never concealed it from himself—had glories to which his wife would never attain, glories that had unfolded against a life of horror, a life even more horrible than he had guessed. He thought of her often during these earlier months. Did she bless his union so different to her own? Did she love his wife? He tried to speak of her to Agnes, but again she was reluctant. And perhaps it was this aversion to acknowledge the dead whose images alone have immortality that made her own image somewhat transient, so that when he left her no mystic influence remained, and only by an effort could he realize that God had united them forever. They conversed and differed healthily upon other topics. A rifle-core was to be formed. She hoped that the boys would have proper uniforms, instead of shooting in their old clothes, as Mr. Jackson had suggested. There was Tucson. Could nothing be done about him? He would slink away from the other prefects and go with boys of his own age. There was Lloyd. He would not learn the school anthem, saying that it hurt his throat. And above all there was Varden, who, to Ricky's bewilderment, was now a member of Dunwood House. He had to go somewhere, said Agnes, lucky for his mother that we had a vacancy. Yes, but when I meet Mrs. Orr, I can't help feeling ashamed. Oh, Mrs. Orr, who cares for her? Her teeth are drawn. If she chooses to insinuate that we planned it, let her. Hers was ranked dishonesty. She attempted to set up a boarding-house. Mrs. Orr, who was quite rich, had attempted no such thing. She had taken the boy out of charity, and without a thought of being unconstitutional. But Anne had come this officious limpet, and upset the headmaster, and she was scolded, and Mrs. Varden was scolded, and Mr. Jackson was scolded, and the boy was scolded, and placed with Mr. Pembroke, whom she revered less than any man in the world. Naturally enough, she considered it a further attempt of the authorities to snub the dayboys, for whose advantage the school had been founded. She and Mrs. Jackson discussed the subject at their tea parties, and the latter lady was sure that no good, no good of any kind, would come to Dunwood House from such ill-gotten plunder. We say let them talk, resisted Ricky, but I never did like letting people talk. We are right, and they are wrong, but I wish the thing could have been done more quietly. The headmaster does get so excited. He has given a gang of foolish people their opportunity. I don't like being branded as the dayboy's foe, when I think how much I would have given to be a dayboy myself. My father found me a nuisance to put me through the mill, and I could never forget it, particularly the evenings. There is very little bullying here, said Agnes. There is very little bullying at my school. There was simply the atmosphere of unkindness, which no discipline can dispel. It's not what people do to you, but what they mean that hurts. I don't understand. Physical pain doesn't hurt, at least not what I call hurt, if a man hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you know it comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each other. I remember it, and see it again. They can make strong, isolated friendships, but in general a good fellowship they have into notion. All I know is there is very little bullying here. You see, the notion of good fellowship develops late. You can just see it's beginning here among the prefects. Up at Cambridge it flourishes amazingly. That's why pity people who don't go up to Cambridge. Not because the university is smart, but because those are the magic years. And, with luck, you see up there what you couldn't see before and may never see again. Aren't these the magic years, the lady demanded? He laughed and hit at her. I'm getting somewhat involved, but hear me, O Agnes, for I am practical. I do approve of our public schools. Long may they flourish, but I do not approve of the boarding-house system. It isn't an inevitable adjunct. Good gracious me, she shrieked. Have you gone mad? Silence, madam. Don't betray me to Herbert, or I'll give us the sack. But seriously, what is the good of throwing boys so much together? Isn't it building their lives on a wrong basis? They don't understand each other. I wish they did, but they don't. They don't realize that human beings are simply marvellous. When they do, the whole of life changes, and you get the true thing. But don't pretend you've got it before you have. Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but masters a little forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot create one. Cannot, cannot, cannot. I never cared a straw for England, until I cared for English men, and boys can't love the school when they hate each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude my address, and most of it is copied out of Mr. Ansel. The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He'd been carried away on the flood of his old emotions. Cambridge, and all that it meant, had stood before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his mother, and a sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals. He was ashamed, for he remembered his new resolution. To work without criticizing, to throw himself vigorously into the machine, not to mind if he was pinched now and then by the elaborate wheels. Mr. Ansel cried his wife, laughing so much really. Aha! Now I understand. It's just the kind of thing poor Mr. Ansel would say. Well, I'm brutal. I believe it does varn good to have his ears pulled now and then, and I don't care whether they pull them in play or not. Boys ought to rough it, or they never grow up into men, and your mother would have agreed with me. Oh yes, and you're all wrong about patriotism. It can, can create a sentiment. She was unusually precise, and had followed his thoughts with an attention that was also unusual. He wondered whether she was not right, and regretted that she proceeded to say, My dear boy, you mustn't talk these heresies inside Dunwood House. You sound just like one of that reactionary Jackson set, who want to fling the school back a hundred years, and have nothing but day-boys all dressed anyhow. The Jackson set have their points. You'd better join it. The Dunwood House set has its points, for Rickie suffered from the primal curse, which is not, as the authorized version suggests, the knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good and evil. Then stick to the Dunwood House set. I do, and shall. Again he was ashamed. Why would he see the other side of things? He rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, and then they returned to the subject of Varden. I'm certain he suffers, said he, for she would do nothing but laugh. Each boy who passes pulls his ears. Very funny, no doubt, but every day they stick out more and get redder, and this afternoon, when he didn't know he was being watched, he was holding his head and moaning. I hate the look about his eyes. I hate the whole boy, nasty, weedy thing. Well, I'm a nasty, weedy thing, if it comes to that. No, you aren't, she cried, kissing him. But he led her back to the subject. Could nothing be suggested? He drew up some new rules, alterations in the times of going to bed, and so on, the effect of which would be to provide fewer opportunities for the polling of Varden's ears. The rules were submitted to Herbert, who sympathized with weakliness more than did his sister, and gave them his careful consideration. But unfortunately they collided with other rules, and on a closer examination he found that they also ran contrary to the fundamentals on which the Government of Dunwood House was based. So nothing was done. Agnes was rather pleased, and took to teasing her husband about Varden. At last he asked her to stop. He felt uneasy about the boy, almost superstitious. His first morning's work had brought sixty pounds a year to their hotel. CHAPTER XIX They did not get to Italy at Easter. Herbert had the offer of some private pupils and needed Ricky's help. It seemed unreasonable to leave England when money was to be made in it, so they went to Ilfercombe instead. They spent three weeks among the natural advantages and unnatural disadvantages of that resort. It was out of the season and they encamped in a huge hotel, which took them at a reduction. By a disastrous chance the Jacksons were down there too, and a good deal of constrained civility had to pass between the two families. Constrained it was not in Mr. Jackson's case. At all times he was ready to talk, and as long as they kept off the school it was pleasant enough. But he was very indiscreet and feminine tact had often to intervene. Go away, dear ladies, he would then observe. You think you see life because you see the chasms in it, yet all the chasms are full of female skeletons. The ladies smiled anxiously. To Ricky he was friendly and even intimate. They had long talks on the deserted capstone, while their wives sat reading in the winter garden and Mr. Pembroke kept an eye upon the tutored youths. Once I had tutored youths, said Mr. Jackson, but I lost them all by letting them paddle with my nieces. It is so impossible to remember what is proper. And sooner or later their talk gravitated towards his central passion, the fragments of Sufa Cleese. Some day, never, said Herbert, he would edit them. At present they were merely in his blood. With the zeal of a scholar and the imagination of a poet he reconstructed lost dramas. Naomi, Thedra, Philctides, against Troy, whose names, but for an accident, would have thrilled the world. Is it worth it, he cried, had we better be planting potatoes? And then we had, but this is the second best. Agnes did not approve of these colloquies. Mr. Jackson was not a buffoon, but he behaved like one, which is what matters. And from the winter garden she could see people laughing at him and at her husband who got excited, too. She hinted once or twice, but no notice was taken. And at last she said rather sharply, Now you're not too ricky, I won't have it. He's a type that suits me. He knows people I know or would like to have known. He was a friend of Tony's failings. It is so hard to realize that a man connected with one was great. Uncle Tony seems to have been. He loved poetry and music and pictures and everything tempted him to live in a kind of cultured paradise, with a door shut upon squalor. But to have more decent people in the world he sacrificed everything to that. He would have smashed the whole beauty shop if it would help him. I really couldn't go as far as that. I don't think one need go as far. Pictures might have to be smashed, but not music or poetry. Surely they help, and Jackson doesn't think so either. Well, I won't have it, and that's enough. She laughed, for her voice had a little bean that of the professional scold. You see, we must hang together using the reactionary camp. He doesn't know it. He doesn't know that he is in any camp at all. His wife is, which comes to the same. Still, it's the holidays. He and Mr. Jackson had drifted apart in the term chiefly owing to the affair of Arden. We were to have the holidays to ourselves, you know. And following some line of thought, he continued, he cheers one up. He does believe in poetry. Smart, sentimental books do seem absolutely absurd to him, and gods and fairies far nearer to reality. He tries to express all modern life in the terms of Greek mythology, because the Greeks looked very straight at things, and Demeter of Aphrodite are thinner veils than the survival of the fittest, or a marriage has been arranged, and other draperies of modern journalies. And do you know what that means? It means that poetry, not prose, lies at the core. No, I can tell you what it means. Baldur Dash. His mouth fell. She was sweeping away the cobwebs with a vengeance. I hope you're wrong, he replied, for those are the lines in which I've been writing, however badly, for the last two years. But you write stories, not poems. He looked at his watch. Lessons again. One never has a moment's peace. Poor Ricky, you shall have a real holiday in the summer. And she called after him to say, Remember, dear, about Mr. Jackson. Don't go talking so much to him. Rather arbitrary. Her tone had been a little arbitrary of late. But what did it matter? Mr. Jackson was not a friend, and he must risk the chance of offending Windrington. After the lesson he wrote to Ansel, whom he had not seen since June, asking him to come down to Il Fracombe, if only for a day. On reading the letter over, its tone displeased him. It was quite pathetic. It sounded like a cry from prison. I can't send him such nonsense, he thought, and wrote again. But phrased as he would, the letter always suggested that he wasn't happy. What's wrong? He wondered. I could write anything I wanted to him once. So he scrawled. Come, on a postcard. But even this seemed too serious. The postcard followed the letters, and Agnes found them all in the waste paper basket. Then she said, I've been thinking, oughtn't you to ask Mr. Ansel over? A breath of sierre would do the poor thing good. There was no difficulty now, he wrote at once. My dear Stewart, we both so much wish you could come over. But the invitation was refused. A little uneasy, he wrote again, using the dialect of their past intimacy. The effect of this letter was not pathetic but jaunty, and he felt a keen regret as soon as it slipped into the box. It was a relief to receive no reply. He brooded a good deal over this painful yet intangible episode. Was the pain all of his own creating, or had it been produced by something external? And he got the answer that brooding always gives. It was both. He was morbid and had been so since his visit to Catover quicker to register discomfort than joy. But nonetheless, Ansel was definitely brutal, and Agnes definitely jealous. Brutality he could understand, alien as it was to himself. Jealousy equally alien was a harder matter. Let husband and wife be as sun and moon or as moon and sun. Shall they therefore not give greeting to the stars? He was willing to grant that the love that inspired her might be higher than his own. Yet did it not exclude them both from much that is gracious. That dream of his, when he wrote on the Wiltshire expanses, a curious dream, the lark silent, the earth dissolving, and he awoke from it into a valley full of men. She was jealous in many ways, sometimes in an open, humorous fashion, sometimes more subtly, never content till we had extended our patronage and, if possible, our pity. She began to patronize and pity Ansel, and most sincerely trusted that he would get his fellowship. Otherwise what was the poor fellow to do? Ridiculous as it may seem she was even jealous of nature. One day her husband escaped from Ilfracombe to Mortho and came back ecstatic over its fangs of slate, piercing and oily sea. Sounds like an hippopotamus, she said, peevishly, and when they returned to Sauston through the Virgilian counties she disliked him looking out of the windows for all the world as if nature was some dangerous woman. He resumed his duties with a feeling that he had never left them. Again he confronted the assembled house. This term was again the term. School still the world in miniature. The music of the four-part fugue entered into him more deeply, and he began to hum its little phrases. The same routines, the same diplomacies, the same old sense of only half-knowing boys or men, he returned to it all, and all that changed was the cloud of unreality, which ever brooded a little more densely than before. He spoke to his wife about this, he spoke to her about everything, and she was alarmed and wanted him to see a doctor. But he explained that it was nothing of any practical importance, nothing that interfered with his worker's appetite, nothing more than a feeling that the cow was not really there. She laughed. And how is the cow today? Soon passed into a domestic joke. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster, Chapter 20. Ansel was in his favorite haunt, the reading room of the British Museum. In that book encircled space he always could find peace. He loved to see the volumes rising tear above tear into the misty dome. He loved the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and the radiating desks, and the central area where the catalog shelves curve, round the superintendent's throne. There he knew that his life was not ignoble. It was worthwhile to grow old and dusty, seeking for truth, though truth is unattainable, restating questions that have been stated at the beginning of the world. Failure would await him, but not disillusionment. It was worthwhile reading books and writing a book or two which few would read and no one perhaps endures. He was not a hero and he knew it. His father and sister, by their steady goodness, had made this life possible. But all the same it was not the life of a spoiled child. In the next chair to him sat Windrington, engaged in his historical research. His desk was edged with enormous volumes, and every few moments an assistant brought him more. They rose like a wall against Ansel. Towards the end of the morning a gap was made, and through it they held the following conversation. I've been stopping with my cousin at Sauston. It was quite exciting. The air rang with battle. About two-thirds of the masters have lost their heads and are trying to produce a kinkrak copy of Eaton. Last term, you know, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, they fixed the numbers of the school. This term they wanted creating new boarding-house. They are very welcome. But the more boarding-houses they create, the less room they leave for day-boys. The local mothers are frantic, and so is my queer cousin. I never knew him so excited over sub-hylenic things. There was an indignation meeting at his house. He is supposed to look after the day-boys' interests, but no one thought he would, least of all the people who gave him the post. The speeches were most eloquent. They argued that the school was founded for day-boys and that it's intolerable to handicap them. One poor lady cried, Here's my Harold in the school and my Toddie coming on. As likely as not, I shall be told there is no vacancy for him. Then what am I to do? If I go, what's to become of Harold, and if I stop, what's to become of Toddie? I must say I was touched. Family life is more real than national life. At least I've ordered all these books to prove it is, and I fancy that the bust of Euripides agreed with me and was sorry for the hot-faced mothers. Jackson will do what he can. He didn't quite like to state the naked truth, which is that boarding-houses pay. He explained it to me afterwards, they are the only future open to a stupid master. It's easy enough to be a beak when you're young and athletic and can offer the latest university smattering. The difficulty is to keep your place when you get old and stiff, and younger smatterers are pushing up behind you. Crawl into a boarding house and you're safe. A master's life is frightfully tragic. Jackson's fairly right himself because he has got a first-class intellect. But I met a poor brute who was hired as an athlete. He has missed his shot at a boarding house and there's nothing in the world for him to do but to trundle down the hill. And so yawned. I saw Ricky, too. Once I dined there. Another yawn. My cousin thinks Mrs. Elliott, one of the most horrible women he has ever seen, he calls her Medusa in Arcady. She's so pleasant, too, but certainly it was a very stony meal. What kind of stoniness? No one stopped talking for a moment. That's the real kind, said Ansel Moodley, the only kind. Well, I, he continued, am inclined to compare her to an electric light. Click, she's on. Click, she's off. No waste, no flicker. I wish she'd fuse. She'll never fuse, unless anything was to happen at the main. What do you mean by the main? said Ansel, who always pursued a metaphor relentlessly. Woodrington did not know what he meant and suggested that Ansel should visit Sauston to see whether one could know. It is no good me going. I should not find Mrs. Elliott. She has no real existence. Ricky has. I very much doubt it. I had two letters from Ilfracome last April, and I very much doubt that the man who wrote them can exist. Bending downwards he began to adorn the manuscript of his desertation with a square, and inside that a circle, and inside that another square. It was his second desertation. The first had failed. I think he exists. He is so unhappy. Ansel nodded. How did you know he wasn't happy? Because he was always talking. After a pause he added, what clever young men we are. Aren't we? I expect we shall get asked in marriage soon. I say, Woodrington, shall we? Except, of course, it is not young manly to say no. I meant shall we ever do a more tremendous thing, fused Mrs. Elliott? No, said Woodrington promptly, which I'll never do that in all our lives. He added, I think you might go down to Sauston, though. I have already refused or ignored three invitations. So I gathered. What's the good of it? said Ansel through his teeth. I will not put up with little things. I would rather be rude than to listen to twaddle from a man I've known. You might go down to Sauston just for night, to see him. I saw him last month, at least, so Tillard informs me. He says that we all three lunched together, that Ricky paid, and that the conversation was most interesting. Well, I contend that he does exist, and that if you go—oh, I can't be clever any longer. You really must go, man. I'm certain he's miserable and lonely. Dunwood House reeks of commerce and snobbery, and all the things he hated most. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't make any friends. He's so odd, too. In this day-boy row that has just started, he's gone for my cousin. Would you believe it? Quite spitefully. It made quite a difficulty when I wanted to dine. It doesn't like him, either—the sentiments or the behaviour. I'm sure he's not himself. Pembroke used to look after the day-boys, and so he can't very well take the lead against them. And perhaps Ricky's doing his dirty work, and has overdone it, as decent people generally do. He's even altering to talk to, yet he's not been married a year. Pembroke and that wife simply run him. I don't see why they should, and no more to you, and that's why I want you to go to Sauston, if only for one night. Ansel shook his head, and looked up at the dome, as other men looked at the sky. In it the great arc lamps sputtered and flared for the month was again November. Then he lowered his eyes from the cold violet radiance to the books. No, Woodrington, no. We don't go to see people because they are happy or unhappy. We go when we can talk to them. I cannot talk to Ricky. Therefore I will not waste my time at Sauston. I think you're right, said Woodrington softly, but we are bloodless brutes. I wonder whether, if we were different people, something might be done to save him. That is the curse of being a little intellectual. You and our sort have always seen to clearly. We stand aside, and meanwhile he turns into stone. Two philosophic youths repining in the British Museum. What have we done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and criticize while people who know what they want snatch it away from us and laugh. Perhaps you are that sort. I am not. When the moment comes I shall hit out like any plow-boy. Don't believe those lies about intellectual people. They're only written to soothe the majority. Do you suppose, with the world as it is, that it's an easy matter to keep quiet? Do you suppose that I didn't want to rescue him from that ghastly woman? Action. Nothing's easier than action as fools testify, but I want to act, rightly. The superintendent is looking at us. I must get back to my work. You think this all nonsense, said Ansel, detaining him. Please remember that if I do act, you are bound to help me. Widerington looked a little grave. He was no anarchist. A few plaintive cries against Mrs. Elliott were all that he prepared to emit. There's no mystery, continued Ansel. I haven't the shadow of a plan in my head. I know not only Ricky, but the whole of his history. You remember the day near maddingly. Nothing in either helps me. I'm just watching. But what for? For the spirit of life. Widerington was surprised. It was a phrase unknown to their philosophy. They had trespassed into poetry. You can't fight Medusa with anything else. If you ask me what the spirit of life is, or to what it is attached, I can't tell you. I only tell you. Watch for it. Myself, I've found it in books. Some people find it out of doors or in each other. Never mind. It's the same spirit, and I trust in myself to know it anywhere, and to use it rightly. But at this point the superintendent sent a message. Widerington then suggested a stroll in the galleries. It was foggy. They needed fresh air. He loved and admired his friend, but today he could not grasp him. The world as Ansel saw it seemed such a fantastic place, governed by brand new laws. What more could one do than to see Ricky as often as possible, to invite his confidence, to offer him spiritual support? And Mrs. Elliott, what power could fuse a respectable woman? Ansel consented to the stroll, but as usual only breathed depression. The comfort of books deserted him among those marble goddesses and gods. The eye of an artist finds pleasure in texture and poise, but he could only think of the vanished incense and deserted temples beside an unfurrowed sea. Let us go, he said. I do not like carved stones. You are too particular, said Widerington. You are always expecting to meet living people. One never does. I am content with a Parthenon freeze. And he moved along a few yards of it, while Ansel followed, conscious only of its pathos. There's Tillard. He observed. Shall we kill him? Please, said Widerington, and as he spoke Tillard joined him. He brought some news. That morning he had heard from Ricky. Mrs. Elliott was expecting a child. A child? said Ansel, suddenly bewildered. Oh, I forgot! interposed Widerington. My cousin did tell me. You forgot? Well, after all, I forgot that it might be. We are indeed young men. He lent against the pedestal of Ilysis and remembered their talk about the spirit of life. In his ignorance of what a child means, he wondered whether the opportunity he saw lay here. I'm very glad, said Tillard, not without intention. A child will draw them even closer together. I like to see young people wrapped up in their child. I suppose I must be getting back to my desertation, said Ansel. He left the Parthenon to pass by the monuments of our more reticent beliefs, the temple of the Ephesian Artemis, the statue of the Cenedian Dimiter. Honest, he knew that here were powers he could not cope with, nor, as yet, understand. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 of The Longest Journey This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Longest Journey by E. M. Forster, Chapter 21 The mists that had gathered round Ricky seemed to be breaking. He had found light neither in work for which he was unfitted, nor in a woman who had seized to respect him and whom he was seizing to love. Though he called himself fickle, and took all the blame of their marriage on his own shoulders, there remained an agnus. Certain terrible faults of heart and head had no self-reproach would diminish them. The glamour of wedlock had faded. Indeed, he saw now that it had faded even before wedlock, and that, during the final months, he had shut his eyes and pretended it was still there. But now the mists were breaking. That November the supreme event approached. He saw it with nature's eyes. It dawned on him, as on Ansel, that personal love and marriage only cover one side of the shield, and that on the other is graven the epic of birth. In the midst of lessons he would grow dreamy, as one who spies a new symbol for the universe, a fresh circle within the square, within the square shall be a circle, within the circle another square, until the visual eyes baffled. Here is meaning of a kind. His mother had forgotten herself in him. He would forget himself in his son. He was at his duties when the news arrived, taking preparation. Boys are marvelous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes. Perhaps they will attain to a woman's tenderness. Though they despised Ricky and had suffered under Agnes's meanness, their one thought this term was to be gentle and to give no trouble. Ricky, one moment. His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert into the passage, closing the door of the preparation room behind him. Oh, is she safe? He whispered. Yes, yes, said Herbert. But there sounded in his answer a somber, hostile note. Our boy? Girl, a girl, dear Ricky, a little daughter. She is in many ways a healthy child. She will live. Oh, yes. A flash of horror passed over his face. He heard into the preparation room, lifted the lid of his desk, glanced mechanically at the boys, and came out again. Mrs. Lewin appeared through the door that led into their own part of the house. Both going on well, she cried, but her voice also was grave, exasperated. What is it? He gasped. It's something you dare not tell me. Only this, stuttered Herbert, you mustn't mind when you see. She's lame. Mrs. Lewin disappeared. Lame? But not as lame as I am. Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don't—oh, be a man in this. Come away from the preparation room. Remember, she'll live in many ways healthy, only just this one defect. The horror of that week never passed away from him. To the end of his life he remembered the excuses, the consolations that the child would live, suffered very little, if at all, would walk with crutches, would certainly live. God was more merciful. A window was opened, too wide on a draughty day. After a short, painless illness, his daughter died. But the lesson he had learnt so glibly at Cambridge should be heated now. No child should ever be born to him again. E. M. Forster Chapter 22 That same term there took place at Dunwood House, another event. With their private tragedy seemed to have no connection, but in time Ricky perceived it as a bitter comment. Its developments were unforeseen and lasting. It was perhaps the most terrible thing he had to bear. E. M. Varden had now been a border for ten months. His health had broken in the previous term. Partly it is to be feared as the result of the indifferent food, and during the summer holidays he was attacked by a series of agonizing ear aches. His mother, a feeble person, wished to keep him at home, but Herbert dissuaded her. Soon after the death of the child there arose at Dunwood House one of those waves of hostility of which no boy knows the origin, nor any master can calculate the course. Varden had never been popular. There was no reason why he should be, but he had never been seriously bullied hitherto. One evening nearly the whole house set on him. The prefects absented themselves, the bigger boys stood round and the lesser boys to whom power was delegated flung him down and rubbed his face under the desks and wrenched at his ears. The noise penetrated the bay's doors and Herbert swept through and punished the whole house, including Varden, whom it would not do to leave out. The poor man was horrified. He approved of a little healthy roughness, but this was pure brutalization. What had come over his boys? Were they not gentlemen's sons? He would not admit that if you heard together human beings before they can understand each other, the great god Pan is angry, and will in the end evade your regulations and drive them mad. That night the victim was screaming with pain and the doctor next day spoke of an operation. The suspense lasted a whole week, comment was made in the local papers, and the reputation not only of the house but of the school was imperiled. If only I had known, repeated Herbert, if only I had known I would have arranged it all differently he should have had a cubicle. The boy did not die, but he left Sauston never to return. The day before his departure Ricky sat with him some time and tried to talk in a way that was not pedantic. In his own sorrow which he could share with no one, least of all with his own wife, he was still alive to the sorrows of others. He still fought against apathy though he was losing the battle. Don't lose heart, he told him, the world isn't all going to be like this. There are temptations and trials of course, but nothing at all of the kind you have had here. But school is the world in miniature, is it not sir? asked the boy, hoping to please one master by echoing what had been told him by another. He was always on the lookout for sympathy, it was one of the things that had contributed to his downfall. I never noticed that myself, I was unhappy at school and in the world people can be very unhappy. Vardhan sighed and rolled about his eyes, are the fellows sorry for what they did to me? He asked in an affected voice, I am sure I forgive them from the bottom of my heart, we ought to forgive our enemies oughtn't we sir? But they aren't your enemies, if you meet in five years time you may find each other splendid fellows. The boy would not admit this, he had been reading some revivalistic literature. We ought to forgive our enemies, he repeated, and however wicked they are we ought not to wish them evil. When I was ill and death seemed nearest, I had many kind letters on this subject. Rikin knew about these many kind letters. Vardhan had induced the silly nurse to write to people, people of all sorts, people that he scarcely knew or did not know at all, detailing his misfortune, and asking for spiritual aid and sympathy. I am sorry for them, he pursued, I would not like to be like them. Rikki sighed. He saw that a year at Dunwood House had produced a sanctimonious prig. Don't think about them Vardhan, think about anything beautiful, save music, you like music, be happy, it's your duty, you can't be good until you've had a little happiness, then perhaps you will think less about forgiving people and more about loving them. I love them already, sir. And Rikki, in desperation, asked if he might look at the many kind letters. Permission was gladly given, a neat bundle was produced, and for about twenty minutes the master perused it, while the invalid kept watch on his face. Rukes cawed out in the playing fields and close under tile window, there was the sound of delightful good-tempered laughter. A boy's no devil, whatever boys may be. The letters were chilly productions, somewhat clerical in tone by whom so ever ridden. Vardhan, because he was ill at the time, had been taken seriously. The writers declared that his illness was fulfilling some mysterious purpose. Suffering in gendered spiritual growth, he was showing signs of this already. They consented to pray for him, some majestically, others shyly, but they all consented with one exception, who worded his refusal as follows. Dear A. C. Vardhan, I ought to say that I never remember seeing you. I am sorry that you are ill and hope you are not wrong about it. Why did you not write before, for I could have helped you then. When they pulled your ear you ought to have gone like this. Here was a rough sketch. I could not undertake praying, but would think of you instead if that would do. I am twenty-two in April, built rather heavy, ordinary broad face with eyes, etc. I write all this because you have mixed me with someone else, for I am not married and do not want to be. I cannot think of you, always, but will promise a quarter of an hour daily, say seven to seven-fifteen a.m., and might come to see you when you are better, that is, if you are a kid and you read like one. I have been otter-hunting. Your sincerely. Stefan won him. CHAPTER XXIII Ricky went straight from Vardhan to his wife, who lay on the sofa in her bedroom. There was now a wide gulf between them. She, like the world she had created for him, was unreal. Agnes, darling, he began stroking her hand. Such an awkward little thing has happened. What is it, dear? Just wait till I have added up this hook. She had got over the tragedy. She got over everything. When she was at leisure, he told her, hitherto they had seldom mentioned Stefan. He was classed among the unprofitable dead. She was more sympathetic than he expected. Dear Ricky, she murmured, with averted eyes, how tiresome for you. I wish that Vardhan had stopped with Mrs. Orr. Well, he leaves us for good tomorrow. Yes, yes, and I made him answer the letter and apologize. They had never met. It was some confusion with a man in the church army living at a place called Cottford. I asked the nurse. It is all explained. There the matter ends. I suppose so, if matters ever end. If by ill luck the person does call, I will just see him and say that the boy is gone. You or I, I have got over all nonsense by this time. He is absolutely nothing to me now. He took up the tradesman's book and played with it idly. On its crimson cover was stamped a grotesque sheep. How stale and stupid their life had become. Don't talk like that, though, she said uneasily. Think how disastrous it would be if you made a slip in speaking to him. Would it? It would have been disastrous once, but I expect, as a matter of fact, that Aunt Emily has made the slip already. His wife was displeased. You'd need not talk in that cynical way. I credit Aunt Emily with better feeling. When I was there she did mention the matter but only once. She and I and all who have any sense of decency know better than to make slips or to think of making them. Agnes kept up what she called the family connection. She had been once alone to cat over and also corresponded with Mrs. Failing. She had never told Ricky anything about her visit nor had he ever asked her. But from this moment the whole subject was reopened. Most certainly he knows nothing. She continued. Why, he does not even realize that Varden lives in our house. We are perfectly safe unless Aunt Emily were to die. Perhaps then, but we are perfectly safe for the present. When she did mention the matter what did she say? We had a long talk, said Agnes quietly. She told me nothing new, nothing new about the past, I mean. But we had a long talk about the present, I think, and her voice grew displeased again, that you have been both wrong and foolish in refusing to make up your quarrel with Aunt Emily. Wrong and wise, I should say. It isn't to be expected that she, so much older and so sensitive, can make the first step, but I know she'd be glad to see you. As far as I can remember that final scene in the garden I accused her of forgetting what other people were like. She'll never pardon me for saying that. Agnes was silent. To her the phrase was meaningless, yet Ricky was correct. Mrs. Failing had resented it more than anything. At all events she suggested you might go and see her. No, dear, thank you, no. She is, after all, she was going to say your father's sister, but the expression was scarcely a happy one, and she turned it into, she is, after all, growing old and lonely. So are we all, he cried, with a lapse of tone that was now characteristic to him. She oughtn't to be so isolated from her proper relatives. There was a moment's silence. Still playing with the book, he remarked, you forget she's got her favorite nephew. A bright red flush spread over her cheeks. What is the matter with you this afternoon? She asked. I should think you'd better go for a walk. Before I go, tell me what is the matter with you. He also flushed. Why do you want me to make it up with my aunt? Because it's right and proper. So, or because she's old? I don't understand, she retorted, but her eyes dropped. His sudden suspicion was true. She was legacy hunting. Agnes, dear Agnes, he began with passing tenderness. How can you think of such things? You behave like a poor person. We don't want any money from Aunt Emily or from anyone else. It isn't virtue that makes me say it. We are not tempted in that way. We have as much as we want already. For the present, she answered, still looking aside. There isn't any future, he cried in a gust of despair. Ricky, what do you mean? What did he mean? He meant that the relations between them were fixed, that there would never be an influx of interest nor even of passion. To the end of life they would go on beating time and this was enough for her. She was content with the daily round, the common task performed indifferently. But he had dreamt of another helpmate and of other things. We don't want money. Why? We don't even spend any on traveling. I've invested all my salary and more, as far as human foresight goes we shall never want money. And his thoughts went out to the tiny grave. You spoke of right and proper, but the right and proper thing for my aunt to do is to leave every penny she's got to Steffen. Her lip quivered and for one moment he thought that she was going to cry. What am I to do with you? She said. You talk like a person in poetry. I'll put it in prose. He's lived with her for twenty years and he ought to be paid for it. Poor Agnes. Indeed, what was she to do? The first moment she set foot in Caddo for she had thought, oh, here is money. We must try and get it. Being a lady she never mentioned the thought to her husband, but she concluded that it would occur to him, too. And now, though it had occurred to him at last, he would not even write his aunt a little note. He was to try her yet further. While they argued this point he flashed out with. I ought to have told him that day when he called up to our room. There's where I went wrong first. Ricky. In those days I was sentimental. I minded. For two pins I'd write him this afternoon. Why shouldn't he know he's my brother? What's all this ridiculous mystery? She became incoherent. But why not? A reason why he shouldn't know. A reason why he should know, she retorted, I never heard such rubbish. Give me a reason why he should know. Because the lie we acted has ruined our lives. She looked in bewilderment at the well-appointed room. It's been like a poison we won't acknowledge. How many times have you thought of my brother? I've thought of him every day. Not in love, don't misunderstand. Only as a medicine I shirked. Down in what they call the subconscious self he has been hurting me. His voice broke. Oh, my darling, we acted a lie then, and this letter reminds us of it and gives us one more chance. I have to say we lied. I should be lying again if I took quite all the blame. Let us ask God's forgiveness together, then let us write as coldly as you please, to Stefan and tell him he is my father's son. Her reply need not be quoted. It was the last time he attempted intimacy. And the remainder of their conversation, though long and stormy, is also best forgotten. Thus the first effect of Varden's letter was to make them quarrel. They had not openly disagreed before. In the evening he kissed her and said, How absurd I was to get angry about things that happened last year. I will certainly not write to the person. She returned the kiss. But he knew that they had destroyed the habit of reverence and would quarrel again. On his rounds he looked in at Varden and asked nonchalantly for the letter. He carried it off to his room. It was unwise of him, for his nerves were already unstung, and the man he had tried to bury was stirring ominously. In the silence he examined the handwriting till he felt that a living creature was with him, whereas he, because his child had died, was dead. He perceived more clearly the cruelty of nature, to whom our refinement and piety are but as bubbles, hurrying downwards on the turbid waters. They break and the stream continues. His father, as a final insult, had brought into the world a man unlike all the rest of them, a man dowered with coarse kindliness and rustic strength, a kind of cynical plow-boy, against whom their own misery and weakness might stand more vividly relieved. Born an Elliot, born a gentleman, so the vile phrase ran. But here was an Elliot whose badness was not even gentlemanly. For that Stefan was bad inherently he never doubted for a moment, and he would have children. He, not Ricky, would contribute to the stream. He, through his remote posterity, might mingled with the unknown sea. Thus musing he lay down to sleep, feeling diseased in body and soul, it was no wonder that the night was the most terrible he had ever known. He visited Cambridge, and his name was a grey ghost over the door. Then there occurred the voice of a gentle shadowy woman, Mrs. Aberdeen. It doesn't seem hardly right. Those had been her words, her only complaint against the mysteries of change and death. She bowed her head and labored to make her gentleman comfortable. She was laboring still. As Elaine bet he asked God to grant him her wisdom, that he might keep sorrow within due bounds, that he might abstain from extreme hatred and envy of Stefan. It was seldom that he prayed so definitely or ventured to obtrude his private wishes. Religion was to him a service, a mystic communion with good, not a means of getting what he wanted on the earth. But, tonight, through suffering, he was humbled and became like Mrs. Aberdeen. Hour after hour he awaited sleep and tried to endure the faces that frothed in the gloom, his aunts, his fathers, and worst of all, the triumphant face of his brother. Once he struck at it and awoke, having heard his hand on the wall, then he prayed hysterically for pardon and rest. Yet again did he awake and from a more mysterious dream. He heard his mother crying. She was crying quite distinctly in the darkened room. He whispered, Never mind, my darling, never mind. And a voice echoed, Never mind, come away, let them die out, let them die out. He lit a candle and the room was empty. Then, hurrying to the window, he saw above mean houses the frosty glories of Orion. Henceforward he deteriorates, but those who censure him suggest what he should do. He has lost the work that he loved, his friends and his child. He remained conscientious and decent, but the spiritual part of him proceeded towards ruin. The Coming Months, though full of degradation and anxiety, were to bring him nothing so terrible as that night. It was the crisis of this agony. He was an outcast and a failure, but he was not again forced to contemplate these facts so clearly. Vardan left in the morning carrying the fatal letter with him. The whole house was relieved. The good angel was with the boys again, or else, as Herbert preferred to think, they had learned a lesson and were more humane in consequence. At all events the disastrous term concluded quietly. In the Christmas holidays the two masters made an abortive attempt to visit Italy, and at Easter there was talk of a cruise in the Ijean. Herbert actually went and enjoyed Athens and Delphi. The Eliot's paid a few visits together in England. They returned to Sauston about ten days before school opened to find that Windrington was again stopping with the Jacksons. Intercourse was painful, for the two families were scarcely on speaking terms, nor did the triumphant scaffoldings of the new boarding-house make things easier. The party of progress had carried the day. Windrington was by nature touchy, but on this occasion he refused to take offence and often dropped in to see them. His manner was friendly, but critical. They agreed he was a nuisance. Then Agnes left very abruptly to see Mrs. Failing, and while she was away Ricky had a little stealthy intercourse. Her absence, convenient as it was, puzzled him. Mrs. Silt, half goose, half stormy petrol, had recently paid a flying visit to Cadover and thence had flown without an invitation to Sauston. Generally she was not a welcome guest. On this occasion Agnes had welcomed her, and so Ricky thought had made her promise not to tell him something that she knew. The ladies had talked mysteriously. Mr. Silt would be one with you there, said Mrs. Silt. Could there be any connection between the two visits? Agnes's letters told him nothing they never did. She was too clumsy or too cautious to express herself on paper. A drive to Stonehenge, an anthem in the Cathedral Aunt Emily's Love, and when he met her at Waterloo he learned nothing if there was anything to learn from her face. How did you enjoy yourself? Thoroughly. Were you and she alone? Sometimes, sometimes other people. Will Uncle Tom's essays be published? Here she was more communicative. The book was at last in proof. Aunt Emily had written a charming introduction, but she was so idle she never finished things off. They got into an omnibus for the army and navy stores. She wanted to do some shopping before going down to Sauston. Did you read any of the essays? Everyone, delightful, couldn't put them down. Now and then he spoiled them by statistics, but you should read his descriptions of nature. He agrees with you, says the hills and trees are alive. Aunt Emily called you his spiritual heir, which I thought nice of her. We're both so lamented that you have stopped writing. She quoted fragments of the essays as they went up in the store's lift. What else did you talk about? I've told you all my news. Now for yours. Let's have tea first. They sat down in the corridor amid ladies in every stage of fatigue. Haggard ladies, scarlet ladies, ladies with parcels that twisted from every finger like joints of meat. Gentlemen were scarcer, but all were of the sub-fashionable type to which Ricky himself now belonged. I haven't done anything, he said feebly. Ate, read, been rude to tradespeople, talked to Windrington. Herbert arrived this morning. He has brought a most beautiful photograph of the Parthenon. Mr. Windrington? Yes. What did you talk about? She might have heard every word. It was only the feeling of pleasure that he wished to conceal. Even when we love people, we desire to keep some corner secret from them, however small. It is a human right. It is personality. She began to cross-question him, but they were interrupted. A young lady, at an adjacent table, suddenly rose and cried, Yes, it is you. I thought so from your walk. It was Maud Ansel. Oh, do come and join us, he cried. Let me introduce my wife. Maud bowed quite stiffly, but Agnes, taking it for ill-breeding, was not offended. Then I will come. She continued in shrill pleasant tones, adroitly poisoning her teethings on either hand and transferring them to the Elliott's table. Why haven't you ever come to us, pray? I think you didn't ask me. You weren't to be asked. She sprawled forward with a wagging finger, but her eyes had the honesty of her brothers. Don't you remember the day you left us? Father said, now Mr. Elliott, or did he call you Elliott? How one does forget. Anyway, Father said you weren't to wait for an invitation, and you said no, I won't. Ours is a fair-sized house. She turned somewhat hotly to Agnes, and the second spare room on account of a harp that hangs on the wall is always reserved for Stewart's friends. How is Mr. Ansel, your brother? Maud's face fell. Hadn't you heard? She said in awestruck tones. No. He hasn't got his fellowship. It's the second time he's failed. That means he will never get one. He will never be a dawn nor live in Cambridge and that, as we had hoped. Oh, poor poor fellow! said Mrs. Elliott with a remorse that was sincere, though her congratulations would not have been. I am so very sorry. But Maud turned to Ricky. Mr. Elliott, you might know. Tell me, what is wrong with Stewart's philosophy? What ought he to put in or to alter so as to succeed? Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled. I don't know, said Ricky sadly. There were none of them so clever after all. Hago. She continued vindictively. They say he's read too much, Hago, but they never tell him what to read instead. Their own stuffy books, I suppose. Look here. No, that's a Windsor. After a little groping she produced a copy of Mind and handed it round as if it were a geological specimen. Inside that there's a paragraph written about something Stewart's has written about before, and there it says he's read too much, Hago, and it seems now that that's been the trouble all along. Her voice trembled. I call it most unfair, and the fellowship's gone to a man who has counted the petals on an anemone. Ricky had no inclination to smile. I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead. I don't wish it. You say that, she continued hotly, and then you never come to see him, though you knew you were not to wait for an invitation. If it comes to that, Miss Ansel, retorted Ricky, in the laughing tones that one adopts on such occasions, Stewart won't come to me though he has had an invitation. Yes, chimed in Agnes, we ask Mr. Ansel again and again, and he will have none of us. Maude looked at her with a flashing eye. My brother is a very peculiar person, and we ladies can't understand him, but I know one thing, and that's that he has a reason all round for what he does. Look here, I must be getting on. Waiter, waiter, we'll please separately, of course, call the Armin navy cheap, I know better. How does the drapery department compare? said Agnes sweetly. The girl gave a sharp, choking sound, gathered up her parcels, and left them. Ricky was too much disgusted with his wife to speak. A palling person, she gasped. It was naughty of me, but I couldn't help it. What a dreadful fate for a clever man, to fail in life completely, and then to be thrown back on a family like that. Maude is a snob and a philistine, but in her case something emerges. She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suave as tones. Do let us make one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansel to Sosten. No. What a changeable friend you are, when we were engaged you were always talking about him. Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for the cubicles. But she returned to the subject again not only on that day, but throughout the term, could nothing be done for poor Mr. Ansel. It seemed that she could not rest until all that he had once held dear was humiliated. In this she strayed outside her nature, she was unpractical, and those who strayed outside their nature invite disaster. Ricky, goaded by her, wrote to his friend again. The letter was inalways unlike his old self, Ansel did not answer it, but he did write to Mr. Jackson with whom he was not acquainted. Dear Mr. Jackson, I understand from Woodrington that you have a large house. I would like to tell you how convenient it would be for me to come and stop in it. June suits me best, yours truly, Stuart Ansel. To which Mr. Jackson replied that not only June but during the whole year his house was at the disposal of Mr. Ansel, and of any one who resembled him. But Agnes continued her life cheerfully beating time. She too knew that her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments regretted it. She wished that her husband was handsomer, more successful, more dictatorial. But she would think, no, no, one wasn't grumble, it can't be helped. Ansel was wrong in supposing she might ever leave Ricky. Spiritual apathy prevented her, nor would she ever be tempted by a jollier man. Here criticism would willingly alter its tone, for Agnes also has her tragedy. She belonged to the type, not necessarily an elevated one, but loves once and once only. Her love for Gerald had not been a noble passion, no imagination transfigured it, but such as it was, it sprang to embrace him, and he carried it away with him when he died. Léa moi qui sovereinte, so moi involuntaires. By an effort of the will she had warmed herself, Ricky. She is not conscious of her tragedy, and therefore only the gods need weep at it. But it is fair to remember that hitherto she moves as one from whom the inner life has been withdrawn. Said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had received in the morning, that things go far from satisfactorily at cat over. The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Ricky's second year at Sauston. Indeed, said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. In what way? Do you remember us talking of Stefan, Stefan Warnham, who by an odd coincidence? Yes, who wrote last year to that miserable failure of Arden, I do. It is about him. I did not like the tone of his letter. Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to reply to it, but he, though full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She moved again. I don't think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is the kind of person to bring a young man up at all events that results have been disastrous as time. What has happened? A tangle of things. She lowered her voice. Drink. Dear, really, was Mrs. Failing fond of him? She used to be. She let him live at cat over ever since he was a little boy. Naturally, that cannot continue. Ricky never spoke. And now he has taken to be violent and rude, she went on. In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he, has he got relatives? She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must all come to an end. I blame her, and she blames herself for not being severe enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He has always followed his inclinations, and one knows the result of that. Herbert assented. To me Mrs. Failing's course is perfectly plain. She has a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth's passage to one of the colonies, start him handsomely in some business, and then break off all communications. How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do. I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly honorable manner. He held out his plate for gooseberries. His letter to Varden was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if written at all, it ought to have been both. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he has turned out badly. When you write next, would you tell her how sorry I am? Indeed, I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little anxious, she did so wish she could undertake him. I could not alter a grown man. But in his heart he thought he could, and smiled at his sister amably. Terrible, isn't it? he remarked to Ricky. Ricky, who was trying not to mind anything, assented. And an onlooker would have supposed them a dispassionate trio who were sorry both for Mrs. Failing and for the beggar who would bestride her horse's backs no longer. A new topic was introduced by the arrival of the evening post. Herbert took up all the letters as he often did. Jackson, he exclaimed, what does the fellow want? He read, and his tone was mollified. Dear Mr. Pembroke, could you, Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Elliot, come to supper with us on Saturday next? I should not merely be pleased, I should be grateful. My wife is writing formally to Mrs. Elliot. Here, Agnes, take your letter. But I've entered to write as well, and to add my more uncouth entreaties and olive branch. It is time. But, ridiculous person, does he think that we can leave the house deserted and all go out pleasuring in term time? Ricky, a letter for you. Mine's the formal invitation, said Agnes. How very odd. Mr. Ansel will be there. Surely we asked him here. Did you know he knew the Jacksons? This makes refusal very difficult, said Herbert, who was anxious to accept. At all events, Ricky ought to go. I do not want to go, said Ricky, slowly opening his own letter. As Agnes says, Ansel has refused to come to us. I cannot put myself out for him. Who's yours from? she demanded. Mrs. Silt, replied Herbert, who had seen the handwriting. I trust she does not want to pass a visit this term with examinations impending and all the machinery at full pressure, though, Ricky, you will have to accept the Jacksons' invitation. I cannot possibly go. I have been too rude. With Windrington we always meet here. I'll stop with the boys. His voice caught suddenly. He had opened Mrs. Silt's letter. The Silt's are not ill, I hope. No, but I say. He looks at his wife. I do think this is going too far. Really, Agnes. What has happened? It is going too far, he repeated. He was nerving himself for another battle. I cannot stand this sort of thing. There are limits. He laid the letter down. It was Herbert who picked it up and read. Aunt Emily has just written to us. We are so glad that her troubles are over, in spite of the expense. It never does to live apart from one's own relatives so much as she has done up to now. He goes next Saturday to Canada. What you told her about him just turned the scale. She has asked us. No, it's too much. He interrupted. What I told her. Told her about him? No. I will have it out at last. Agnes. Yes, said his wife, raising her eyes for Mrs. Jackson's formal invitation. It's you. It's you. I never mentioned him to her. Why? I've never seen her or written to her since. I accuse you. Then Herbert overbore him and he collapsed. He was asked what he meant. Why was he so excited? Of what did he accuse his wife? Each time he spoke more feebly and before long the brother and sister were laughing at him. He felt bewildered like a boy who knows that he is right but can't put his case correctly. He repeated, I've never mentioned him to her. It's a libel. Never in my life. And they cried. My dear Ricky, what an absurd fuss. Then his brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter that his wife had received from his aunt and he reopened the battle. Agnes, give me that letter, if you please. Mrs. Jackson's. My aunt's. She put her hand on it and looked at him doubtfully. She saw that she had failed to bully him. My aunt's letter, he repeated rising to his feet and bending over the table towards her. Why, dear? Yes, why indeed? echoed Herbert. He too had bullied Ricky but for my pure motive. He had tried to stamp out a dissension between husband and wife. It was not the first time he had intervened. The letter. For this reason it will show me what you have done. I believe you have ruined Stefan. You have worked at it for two years. You have put words into my mouth to turn the scale against him. He goes to Canada and all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I said before, I advise you to stop smiling. You have gone a little too far. They were all on their feet now, standing around the little table. Agnes said nothing but the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon the letter. When her husband snatched at it, she resisted. With the effect of a harlequinade everything went on the floor. Lamb, mint sauce, gooseberries, lemonade, whiskey. At once they were swamped in domesticities. She rang the bell for the servant, cries arose, dust is rubraught. Broken crockery, a wedding present, picked up from the carpet while he stood wrathfully at the window regarding the obscured son's decline. I must see her letter, he repeated, when the agitation was over. He was too angry to be diverted from his purpose. Only slight emotions are thwarted by an interlude of farce. I've had enough of this quarreling. She retorted, you know that the silts are inaccurate. I think you might have given me the benefit of the doubt. If you will know, have you forgotten that ride you took with him? I—he was again bewildered. The ride where I dreamt? The ride where you turned back because you could not listen to a disgraceful poem. I don't understand. The poem was on Demily. He read it to you and a stray soldier. Afterwards you told me. You said, really, it is shocking. He's in gratitude. She ought to know about it. She does know, and I should be glad of an apology. He said something of the sort in a fit of irritation. Mrs. Silt was right. He had helped turn the scale. Whatever I said, you knew what I meant. You knew I'd sooner cut my tongue out than have it used against him. Even then, he sighed, had he ruined his brother. The curious tenderness came over him and passed when he remembered his own dead child. We have ruined him, then. Have you any objection to we? We have disinherited him. I decide against you, Interpost Herbert. I have now heard both sides of the deplorable affair. You are talking most criminal nonsense. Disinherit. Sentimental twaddle. It's been clear to me from the first that Mrs. Failing has been imposed upon by the Oneham Man, a person with no legal claim on her, and anyone who exposes him performs a public duty and gets money. Money. He was always uneasy at the word. Who mentioned money? Just understand me, Herbert, and of what it is that I accuse my wife. Tears came into his eyes. It is not that I like the Oneham Man or think that he isn't a drunkard and worse. He's too awful in every way. But he ought to have my aunt's money because he's lived all his life with her, and he is her nephew as much as I am. You see, my father went wrong. He stopped amazed at himself how easy it had been to say. He was withering up the power to care about this stupid secret had died. When Herbert understood his first thought was for Dunwood House. Why have I never been told, was his first remark. We settled to tell no one, said Agnes. Ricky in his anxiety to prove me a liar has broken his promise. I ought to have been told, said Herbert, his anger increasing, had I known I could have averted this deplorable scene. Let me conclude it, said Ricky, again collapsing and leaving the dining room. His impulse was to go straight to Caddover and make a business-like statement of the position to Stefan. Then the man would be armed and perhaps fight the two women successfully. But he resisted the impulse. Why should he help one power of evil against another? Let them go intertwined in destruction. To enrich his brother would be as bad as enriching himself. If their aunt's money ever did come to him, he would refuse to accept it. That was the easiest and most dignified course. He troubled himself no longer with justice or piety, and the next day he asked his wife's pardon for his behavior. In the dining room the conversation continued. Agnes, without much difficulty, gained her brother as an ally. She acknowledged that she had been wrong in not telling him, and he then declared that she had been right on every other point. She slurred a little over the incident of her treachery, for Herbert was sometimes clear-sighted over details, though easily muddled in a general survey. Mrs. Failing had plenty of direct causes of complaint, and she dwelt on these. She dwelt too on the very handsome way in which the young man, though he knew nothing, had never asked to know, was being treated by his aunt. Handsome is the word, said Herbert. I hope not indulgently. He does not deserve indulgence. And she knew that he, like herself, could remember money, and that it lent an acknowledged halo to her cause. It is not a savory subject. He continued with sudden stiffness. I understand why Ricky is so hysterical. My impulse. He laid his hand on her shoulder, is to abandon it at once. But if I am to be of any use to you, I must hear it all. There are moments when we must look facts in the face. She did not shrink from the subject as much as he thought, as much as she herself could have wished. Two years before it had filled her with a physical loathing, but by now she had accustomed herself to it. I am afraid, Bertie Boy, there is nothing else to bear. I have tried to find out again and again, but Aunt Emily will not tell me. I suppose it is natural. She wants to shield the Elliot name. She only told us in a fit of temper. Then we all agreed to keep it to ourselves. Then Ricky again mismanaged her, and ever since, she has refused to let us know any details. A most unsatisfactory position. So I feel. She sat down again with a sigh. Mrs. Failing had been a great trial to her orderly mind. She is an odd woman. She is always laughing. She actually finds it amusing. We know no more. They are an odd family. They are indeed. Herbert with unusual sweetness bent down and kissed her. She thanked him. Their tenderness soon passed. They exchanged it with averted eyes. It embarrassed them. There are moments for all of us when we seem obliged to speak in a new, unprofitable tongue. One might fancy Seraph, vexed with our normal language, who touches the pious to blasphemy, the blasphemous to piety. The Seraph passes and we proceed unaltered, conscious, however, that we have not been ourselves, and that we may fail in this function yet again. So Agnes and Herbert, as they proceeded to discuss the Jackson's super-party, had an uneasy memory of spiritual deserts, spiritual streams.