=Dale's Own Opinion.=
If ever our own fortune would allow us to be perfectly happy, the
consumation is prevented and spoiled by the obstinately intruding
unhappiness of others. The reverend person who was of opinion that the
bliss of the blessed would be increased and, so to say, vivified by the
sight of the tortures of the damned, finds few supporters nowadays,
perhaps because our tenderer feelings shrink from such a ruthless
application of the doctrine that only by contemplating the worse can
we enjoy the better; perhaps also because we are not so sure as he was
that we should not be the onlooked rather than the onlookers if ever
his picture came to be realized. So sensitive are we to the ills that
others suffer that at times we feel almost a grudge against them for
their persistence--however unwilling it be--in marring our perfect
contentment; surely they could let us forget them for once in a way.
This last was Dale Bannister's frame of mind as he lay, idly and
yet not peacefully, on his sofa next morning. This Doctor, with
his unflinching logic and unrestrained zeal, was a nuisance. His
devotion had not been sought, and certainly, if it entailed scenes
like yesterday's, was not desired. Dale never asked him to ruin his
practice, as Philip Hume said he was doing, in order to uphold Dale's
principles; Dale did not want a starving family to his account, whose
hungry looks should press him to a close questioning of his conscience.
Any man with an ounce of common sense would understand that there was
a time for everything, and a place. It was one thing to publish your
views in a book, addressed to the world of thinkers and intelligent
readers; it was quite another to brandish them in the face of your
neighbors, and explode them, like shells, in the innocent streets of
Denborough. And yet, because he recognized this obvious distinction,
because he had some sense of what was suitable and reasonable, and
because he refused to make enemies of people simply because they were
well off, the Doctor stormed at him as if he were a traitor and a snob.
And Philip Hume had taken to smiling in an aggravating way when the
Grange was mentioned; and even Nellie---- But Dale, alert as he was in
his present mood to discover matter of complaint, found none against
Nellie, unless it might be some falling off in her old cheerfulness and
buoyancy.
Dale lit his pipe and set himself to consider with impartiality
whether Roberts had in fact any grievance against him. He wanted to
satisfy himself that there was no basis for the Doctor's indignation;
his self-esteem demanded that the accusation should be disproved.
But really it was too plain. What had he done? Refused to acquiesce
in being made a fool of, refused to meet civility with incivility,
to play the churl, to shut his eyes to intelligence and culture and
attractiveness because they happened to be found among people who did
not think as he did or as Roberts was pleased to think. He knew what
those sneers meant, but he would go his own way. Things had come to
a pretty pass if a man might not be civil and seek to avoid wholly
unnecessary causes of offense without being treated as a renegade
to all his convictions. That was not his idea of breadth of mind or
toleration, or of good feeling either. It was simple bigotry, as narrow
as--aye, narrower than--anything he at least had found on the other
side.
Dale disposed of this question, but he still lay on the sofa and
thought. It had been a gain to him, he said to himself, to see this
new side of life; the expedition to Littlehill was well justified. It
is good for a man to take a flag of truce and go talk with the enemy
in the gate. He may not change his own views,--Dale was conscious
of no change in his,--but he comes to see how other people may hold
different ones, and the reason, or anyhow the naturalness, of theirs.
A man of Roberts' fierce Puritan temper could not feel nor appreciate
what appealed to him so strongly in such a life as they lived, for
instance, at the Grange. It had a beauty so its own, that unquestioned
superiority, not grasped as a prize or valued as an opportunity,
but gravely accepted as the parent of duties--the unbroken family
life, grasping through many hands the torch undimmed from reverend
antiquity--the very house, which seemed to enshrine honorable
traditions, at which he could not bring himself to sneer. The sweetness
of it all broke back baffled from the wall of the Doctor's stern
conviction and iron determination. Yet how sweet it all was! And these
people welcomed into their circle any man who had a claim to welcome,
freely, ungrudgingly, cordially. All they asked was a little gentleness
to their--he supposed they were prejudices, a little deference to
their prepossessions, a little smoothing off of the rougher edges of
difference. It was not much to ask. Was he churlishly to deny the small
concession, to refuse to meet them any part of the way, to intrench
himself in the dogmatic intolerance of his most vehement utterances, to
shut his mind off from this new source of inspiration? That was what
Roberts wanted. Well, then--Roberts be hanged!
The course of these reflections produced in Dale a return to his usual
equanimity. It was plainly impossible to please everybody. He must
act as seemed right to himself, neglecting the frowns of unreasonable
grumblers. No doubt Roberts was devoted to him, and Arthur Angell too.
Yet Roberts abused him, and Arthur bothered him with imploring letters,
which warned him against the subtle temptations of his new life. It was
a curious sort of devotion which showed itself mainly in criticism
and disapproval; it was very flattering of these good friends to set
him on a pedestal and require him to live up to the position; only,
unfortunately, the pedestal was of their choosing, not his. All he
asked was to be allowed to live a quiet life and work out his own
ideas in his own way. If they could not put up with that, why---- Dale
refilled his pipe and opened a story by Maupassant.
It may be asserted that every man is the victim of a particular
sort of follies, the follies engendered by his particular sort of
surroundings; they make a fool's circle within which each of us has a
foot planted; for the rest, we may be, and no doubt generally are, very
sensible people. If we set aside Squire Delane's special and indigenous
illusions, he was very far indeed from a fool, and after dinner that
evening he treated his distinguished guest with no small tact. The
young man was beyond question a force; was it outside of ingenuity to
turn him in a better direction?
"Everybody approves of your letter," he said. "Roberts had no business
to drag your name in."
"Of course one is exposed to that sort of thing."
"It's a penalty of greatness. But the case is peculiar when you're
actually living in the place."
"That's exactly what I feel. It's making me a party in a local quarrel."
"That's what he wanted to do; he wanted to fight under your shield."
"I didn't come here to fight at all."
"I should think not; and you haven't found us thirsting for battle,
have you?"
"I have found a kinder welcome than I had any right to expect."
"My dear fellow! Much as we differ, we're all proud of counting you
as a Denshire man. And I don't suppose we shall quarrel much about
Denshire affairs. Oh, I know you think the whole system of country life
an iniquity. I don't go so deep myself. I say, there it is. Perhaps it
might be changed, but, pending that, sensible men can work together
to make the best of it. At any rate, they can avoid treading on one
another's corns."
"I want to avoid everybody's corns, if they'll avoid mine."
"Well, we'll try. I dare say we shall pull together. At any rate, it's
very pleasant dining together. Shall we go upstairs and ask Janet for a
song?"
Mrs. Delane had evidently caught her cue from her husband, and she
treated Dale not as a sinner who repenteth,--a mode of reception
which, after all, requires great tact to make it acceptable,--but as
one who had never been a sinner at all. She asked Dale if he had been
overwhelmed by callers. He replied that he had not suffered much in
that way.
"I knew it," she said. "You have frightened them, Mr. Bannister; they
think you came in search of studious retirement."
"Oh, I hate both study and retirement, Mrs. Delane."
"Well, I shall tell people that--may I? Now, when I was at the
Cransfords' yesterday,--he's our Lord Lieutenant, you know,--they were
wondering whether they might call."
"I am delighted to see anyone."
"From the Mayor upward--or, I suppose, Hedger would think I ought to
say downward. We heard what fun you made of the poor man."
"Mr. Bannister will be more respectful to the Lord Lieutenant," said
Janet, smiling.
"I suppose I disapprove of Lord Lieutenants," remarked Dale, with a
laugh.
"You'll like Lady Cransford very much, and she'll like you. She gives
so many balls that a bachelor household is a godsend."
"Bannister hardly depends on that for a welcome, my dear," said the
Squire from the hearthrug.
"Now I declare, meeting him just as a friend like this, I'm always
forgetting that he's a famous man."
"Please go on, Mrs. Delane. It's a capital exchange. But when are you
going to give me the pleasure of seeing you at Littlehill?"
Mrs. Delane paused for just a second.
"I should like to visit your hermit's cell. But I'm so busy just now,
and I dare say you are. When your guests forsake you, perhaps we will
come and relieve your solitude. Janet, will you give us some music?"
Dale followed Janet to the piano, with a little frown on his brow. Why
wouldn't she come now? Was it---- Janet's voice dispersed the frown and
the reflection.
She sang a couple of songs, choosing them out of a book. As she turned
over the leaves, Dale saw that some of the airs were set to words of
his own writing. When Janet came to one of these, she turned the leaf
hastily. The Squire had gone out, and Mrs. Delane, with the privilege
of near relationship, was absorbed in a novel.
"Will you do me a great favor?" he said.
"What, Mr. Bannister?"
"I should like to hear you sing words of mine. See, here are two or
three."
She glanced through them; then she shut the book and made as though to
rise.
"You won't do it?"
Janet blushed and looked troubled.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Bannister; but I can't sing those words. I--I don't
like them."
"I am sorry they are so bad," he answered in an offended tone.
"Oh, of course, so far as power and--and beauty goes, everything in the
book is trash compared to them. But I can't sing them."
"I won't press you."
"I know you are angry. Please don't be angry, Mr. Bannister. I can't do
what I think wrong, can I?"
"Oh, I have no right to be angry."
"There, you wouldn't say that unless you were angry. People never do."
"You have such a wretchedly bad opinion of me, Miss Delane."
"Do you mind that?"
"You know I do."
"Then one would think you would try to change it."
"Ah, how can I?"
"Write something I should delight in singing."
"If I do, may I dedicate it to you?"
"I'm afraid that wouldn't be allowed."
"But if it were allowed, would you allow it?"
"You know how proud any girl would be of it--of course you know."
"You don't do justice to my humility."
"Do justice to yourself first, Mr. Bannister."
"What sort of songs do you like?"
"Oh, anything honest, and manly, and patriotic, and--and nice in
feeling."
"A catholic taste--and yet none of mine satisfy it."
"I will not be quarreled with," declared Janet.
"My only wish is to propitiate you."
"Then you know now how to do it."
It must be allowed that conversations of this nature have a
pleasantness of their own, and Dale left the Grange with a delightful
feeling of having been treated as he ought to be treated. He found
Philip Hume writing and smoking in the study.
"Well, been stroked the right way, old man?" asked Philip, throwing
down his pen.
Dale helped himself to whisky and soda water, without replying.
"I've been having a talk with Nellie," pursued Philip.
"What's wrong with Nellie?"
"She's got some notion in her head that she and her mother ought to go."
Dale was lighting a cigar.
"Of course I told her it was all nonsense, and that you meant them to
stay as long as they liked. She's got some maggot in her head about
propriety--all nonsense, when her mother's here."
"I don't want them to go, if they like staying," said Dale.
"Well, we should be slow without Nellie, shouldn't we? You must blow
her up for thinking of it. She only wants to be persuaded."
"She can do as she likes."
"You don't seem very enthusiastic about it, one way or the other."
"Well, my dear Phil, I can't be expected to cry at the idea of little
Nellie Fane leaving us."
"Yet you made rather a point of her coming--but that was two months
ago."
"Really, you might leave Nellie and me to settle it."
"What I told her was right, I suppose?"
"Well, you don't suppose I wanted you to tell her to pack up?"
"I don't know what you want, old man," said Philip; "and I doubt if you
do."