Trafford's little attempt to regularise his position was as creditable
to him as it was inevitably futile. He sought out 29, Hartstone Square
in the morning on his way to his laboratory, and he found it one of a
great row of stucco houses each with a portico and a dining-room window
on the ground floor, and each with a railed area from which troglodytic
servants peeped. Collectively the terrace might claim a certain ugly
dignity of restraint, there was none of your Queen Anne nonsense of art
or beauty about it, and the narrow height, the subterranean kitchens of
each constituent house, told of a steep relentless staircase and the
days before the pampering of the lower classes began. The houses formed
a square, as if the British square so famous at Waterloo for its dogged
resistance to all the forces of the universe had immortalized itself in
buildings, and they stared upon a severely railed garden of hardy shrubs
and gravel to which the tenants had the inestimable privilege of access.
They did not use it much, that was their affair, but at any rate they
had keys and a nice sense of rights assured, and at least it kept other
people out.
Trafford turned out of a busy high road full of the mixed exhilarating
traffic of our time, and came along a quiet street into this place, and
it seemed to him he had come into a corner of defence and retreat, into
an atmosphere of obstinate and unteachable resistances. But this
illusion of conservativism in its last ditch was dispelled altogether in
Mr. Pope's portico. Youth flashed out of these solemnities like a dart
shot from a cave. Trafford was raising his hand to the solid brass
knocker when abruptly it was snatched from his fingers, the door was
flung open and a small boy with a number of dirty books in a strap flew
out and hit him with projectile violence.
"Blow!" said the young gentleman recoiling, and Trafford recovering
said: "Hullo, Theodore!"
"Lord!" said Theodore breathless, "It's you! _What_ a lark! Your name's
never mentioned--no how. What _did_ you do?... Wish I could stop and see
it! I'm ten minutes late. _Ave atque vale_. So long!"
He vanished with incredible velocity. And Mr. Trafford was alone in
possession of the open doorway except for Toupee, who after a violent
outbreak of hostility altered his mind and cringed to his feet in abject
and affectionate propitiation. A pseudo-twin appeared, said "Hello!" and
vanished, and then he had an instant's vision of Mr. Pope, newspaper in
hand, appearing from the dining-room. His expression of surprise changed
to malevolence, and he darted back into the room from which he had
emerged. Trafford decided to take the advice of a small brass plate on
his left hand, and "ring also."
A housemaid came out of the bowels of the earth very promptly and
ushered him up two flights of stairs into what was manifestly Mr. Pope's
study.
It was a narrow, rather dark room lit by two crimson-curtained windows,
and with a gas fire before which Mr. Pope's walking boots were warming
for the day. The apartment revealed to Trafford's cursory inspection
many of the stigmata of an Englishman of active intelligence and
literary tastes. There in the bookcase were the collected works of
Scott, a good large illustrated Shakespeare in numerous volumes, and a
complete set of bound _Punches_ from the beginning. A pile of back
numbers of the _Times_ stood on a cane stool in a corner, and in a
little bookcase handy for the occupier of the desk were Whitaker,
Wisden and an old peerage. The desk bore traces of recent epistolary
activity, and was littered with the printed matter of Aunt Plessington's
movements. Two or three recent issues of _The Financial Review of
Reviews_ were also visible. About the room hung steel engravings
apparently of defunct judges or at any rate of exceedingly grim
individuals, and over the mantel were trophies of athletic prowess, a
bat witnessing that Mr. Pope had once captained the second eleven at
Harrogby.
Mr. Pope entered with a stern expression and a sentence prepared. "Well,
sir," he said with a note of ironical affability, "to what may I ascribe
this--intrusion?"
Mr. Trafford was about to reply when Mr. Pope interrupted. "Will you be
seated," he said, and turned his desk chair about for himself, and
occupying it, crossed his legs and pressed the finger tips of his two
hands together. "Well, sir?" he said.
Trafford remained standing astraddle over the boots before the gas fire.
"Look here, sir," he said; "I am in love with your daughter. She's one
and twenty, and I want to see her--and in fact----" He found it hard to
express himself. He could think only of a phrase that sounded
ridiculous. "I want--in fact--to pay my addresses to her."
"Well, sir, I don't want you to do so. That is too mild. I object
strongly--very strongly. My daughter has been engaged to a very
distinguished and able man, and I hope very shortly to hear that that
engagement----Practically it is still going on. I don't want you to
intrude upon my daughter further."
"But look here, sir. There's a certain justice--I mean a certain
reasonableness----"
Mr. Pope held out an arresting hand. "I don't wish it. Let that be
enough."
"Of course it isn't enough. I'm in love with her--and she with me. I'm
an entirely reputable and decent person----"
"May I be allowed to judge what is or is not suitable companionship for
my daughter--and what may or may not be the present state of her
affections?"
"Well, that's rather the point we are discussing. After all, Marjorie
isn't a baby. I want to do all this--this affair, openly and properly if
I can, but, you know, I mean to marry Marjorie--anyhow."
"There are two people to consult in that matter."
"I'll take the risk of that."
"Permit me to differ."
A feeling of helplessness came over Trafford. The curious irritation Mr.
Pope always roused in him began to get the better of him. His face
flushed hotly. "Oh really! really! this is--this is nonsense!" he cried.
"I never heard anything so childish and pointless as your objection----"
"Be careful, sir!" cried Mr. Pope, "be careful!"
"I'm going to marry Marjorie."
"If she marries you, sir, she shall never darken my doors again!"
"If you had a thing against me!"
"_Haven't_ I!"
"What have you?"
There was a quite perceptible pause before Pope fired his shot.
"Does any decent man want the name of Trafford associated with his
daughter. Trafford! Look at the hoardings, sir!"
A sudden blaze of anger lit Trafford. "My God!" he cried and clenched
his fists and seemed for a moment ready to fall upon the man before
him. Then he controlled himself by a violent effort. "You believe in
that libel on my dead father?" he said, with white lips.
"Has it ever been answered?"
"A hundred times. And anyhow!--Confound it! I don't believe--_you_
believe it. You've raked it up--as an excuse! You want an excuse for
your infernal domestic tyranny! That's the truth of it. You can't bear a
creature in your household to have a will or preference of her own. I
tell you, sir, you are intolerable--intolerable!"
He was shouting, and Pope was standing now and shouting too. "Leave my
house, sir. Get out of my house, sir. You come here to insult me, sir!"
A sudden horror of himself and Pope seized the younger man. He stiffened
and became silent. Never in his life before had he been in a bawling
quarrel. He was amazed and ashamed.
"Leave my house!" cried Pope with an imperious gesture towards the door.
Trafford made an absurd effort to save the situation. "I am sorry, sir,
I lost my temper. I had no business to abuse you----"
"You've said enough."
"I apologise for that. I've done what I could to manage things
decently."
"Will you go, sir?" threatened Mr. Pope.
"I'm sorry I came," said Trafford.
Mr. Pope took his stand with folded arms and an expression of weary
patience.
"I did what I could," said Trafford at the door.
The staircase and passage were deserted. The whole house seemed to have
caught from Mr. Pope that same quality of seeing him out....
"Confound it!" said Trafford in the street. "How on earth did all this
happen?"...
He turned eastward, and then realized that work would be impossible that
day. He changed his direction for Kensington Gardens, and in the
flower-bordered walk near the Albert Memorial he sat down on a chair,
and lugged at his moustache and wondered. He was extraordinarily
perplexed, as well as ashamed and enraged by this uproar. How had it
begun? Of course, he had been stupidly abusive, but the insult to his
father had been unendurable. Did a man of Pope's sort quite honestly
believe that stuff? If he didn't, he deserved kicking. If he did, of
course he was entitled to have it cleared up. But then he wouldn't
listen! Was there any case for the man at all? Had he, Trafford, really
put the thing so that Pope would listen? He couldn't remember. What was
it he had said in reply to Pope? What was it exactly that Pope had said?
It was already vague; it was a confused memory of headlong words and
answers; what wasn't vague, what rang in his ears still, was the hoarse
discord of two shouting voices.
Could Marjorie have heard?