Meanwhile there was Robin--and he had been spending several very
unhappy days. In the gloom of his room, alone and depressed, he had
been passing things in review. He had never hitherto felt any very
burning desire to know how he stood with the world; at school and
Cambridge he had not thought at all--he had just, as it were, slid into
things; his surroundings had grouped themselves of their own accord,
making a delicately appreciative circle with no disturbing element.
His friends had been of his own kind, the things that he had wished to
do he had done, his thoughts had been dictated by set forms and
customs. This had seemed to him, hitherto, an extraordinarily broad
outlook; he had never doubted for a moment its splendid infallibility.
He applied the tests of his set to the world at large, and the world
conformed. Life was very easy on such terms, and he had been happy and
contented.
His meeting with Dahlia had merely lent a little colour to his pleasant
complacency, and then, when it had threatened to become something more,
he had ruthlessly cut it out. This should have been simple enough, and
he had been at a loss to understand why the affair had left any traces.
Friends of his at college had had such episodes, and had been mildly
amused at their rapid conclusion. He had tried to be mildly amused at
the conclusion of his own affair, but had failed miserably. Why? ...
he did not know. He must be sensitive, he supposed; then, in that
case, he had failed to reach the proper standard.... Randal was never
sensitive. But there had been other things.
During the last week everything had seemed to be topsy-turvy. He dated
it definitely from the arrival of his father. He recalled the day; his
tie was badly made, he remembered, and he had been rather concerned
about it. How curious it all was; he must have changed since then,
because now--well, ties seemed scarcely to matter at all. He saw his
father standing at the open window watching the lighted town....
"Robin, old boy, we'll have a good time, you and I..."--and then Aunt
Clare with her little cry of horror, and his father's hurried apology.
That had been the beginning of things; one could see how it would go
from the first. Had it, after all, been so greatly his father's fault?
He was surprised to find that he was regarding his uncle and aunt
critically.... It had been their fault to a great extent--they had
never given him a chance. Then he remembered the next morning and his
own curt refusal to his father's invitation--"He had books to pack for
Randal!" How absurd it was, and he wondered why he should have
considered Randal so important. He could have waited for the books.
But these things depended entirely on his own sudden discovery that he
had failed in a crisis--failed, and failed lamentably. He did not
believe that Randal would have failed. Randal would not have worried
about it for a moment. What, then, was precisely the difference? He
had acted throughout according to the old set formula--he had applied
all the rules of the game as he had learnt them, and nevertheless he
had been beaten. And so there had crept over him gradually, slowly,
and at last overwhelmingly, the knowledge that the world that he had
imagined was not the world as it is, that the people he had admired
were not the only admirable people in it, and that the laws that had
governed him were only a small fragment of the laws that rule the world.
When this discovery first comes to a man the effect is deadening; like
a ship that has lost its bearings he plunges in a sea of entangled,
confused ideas with no assurances as to his own ability to reach any
safe port whatever. It is this crisis that marks the change from youth
to manhood.
Three weeks ago Robin had been absolutely confident, not only in
himself, but in his relations, his House and his future; now he trusted
in nothing. But he had not yet arrived at the point when he could
regard his own shortcomings as the cause of his unhappiness; he pointed
to circumstances, his aunt, his uncle, Dahlia, even Randal, and he
began a search for something more reliable.
Of course, his aunt and uncle might have solved the problem for him; he
had not dared to question them and they had never mentioned the subject
themselves, but they did not look as though they had succeeded--he
fancied that they had avoided him during the last few days.
The serious illness of his grandfather still further complicated
matters; he was not expected to live through the week. Robin was
sorry, but he had never seen very much of his grandfather; and it was,
after all, only fitting that such a very old man should die some time;
no, the point really was that his father would in a week's time be Sir
Henry Trojan and head of the House--that was what mattered.
Now his father was the one person whom he could find no excuse whatever
for blaming. He had stood entirely outside the affair from the
beginning, and, as far as Robin could tell, knew nothing whatever about
it. Robin, indeed, had taken care that he should not interfere; he had
been kept outside from the first.
No, Robin could not blame his father for the state of things; perhaps,
even, it might have been better if his advice had been asked.
But everything drove him back to the ultimate fact from which, indeed,
there was no escaping--that there was every prospect of his finding
himself, within a few weeks' time, the interesting centre of a common
affair in the Courts for Breach of Promise; and as this ultimate issue
shone clearer and clearer Robin's terror increased in volume. To his
excited fancy, living and dead seemed to turn upon him. Country
cousins--the Rev. George Trojan of West Taunton, a clergyman whose
evangelical tendencies had been the mock of the House; Colonel Trojan
of Cheltenham, a Port-and-Pepper Indian, as Robin had scornfully called
him; the Misses Trojan of Southsea, ladies of advanced years and
slender purses, who always sent him a card at Christmas; Mrs. Adeline
Trojan of Teignmouth, who had spent her life in beating at the doors of
London Society and had retired at last, defeated, to the provincial
gentility of a seaside town--Oh! Robin had laughed at them all and
scorned them again and again--and behold how the tables would be
turned! And the Dead! Their scorn would be harder still to bear. He
had thought of them often enough and had long ago known their histories
by heart. He had gazed at their portraits in the Long Gallery until he
knew every line of their faces: old Lady Trojan of 1640, a little like
Rembrandt's "Lady with the Ruff," with her stern mouth and eyes and
stiff white collar--she must have been a lady of character! Sir
Charles Trojan, her son, who plotted for William of Orange and was
rewarded royally after the glorious Revolution; Lady Gossiter Trojan, a
woman who had taken active part in the '45, and used "The Flutes" as a
refuge for intriguing Jacobites; and, best of all, a dim black picture
of a man in armour that hung over the mantel-piece, a portrait of a
certain Sir Robert Trojan who had fought in the Barons' Wars and been a
giant of his times; he had always been Robin's hero and had formed the
centre of many an imaginary tapestry worked by Robin's brain--and now
his descendant must pay costs in a Breach of Promise Case!
They had all had their faults, those Trojans; some of them had robbed
and murdered with little compunction, but they had always had their
pride, they had never done anything really low--what they had done they
had done with a high hand; Robin would be the first of the family to
let them down. And it was rather curious to think that, three weeks
ago, it had been his father who was going to let them down. Robin
remembered with what indignation he had heard of his father's visits to
the Cove, his friendship with Bethel and the rest--but surely it was
they who had driven him out! It was their own doing from the first--or
rather his aunt and uncle's. He was beginning to be annoyed with his
aunt and uncle. He felt vaguely that they had got him into the mess
and were quite unable to pull him out again; which reflection brought
him back to the original main business, namely, that there was a mess,
and a bad one.
It was one of his qualities of youth that he could not wait; patience
was an utterly unlearned virtue, and this desperate uncertainty, this
sitting like Damocles under a sword suspended by a hair, was hard to
bear. What was Dahlia doing? Had she already taken steps? He watched
every post with terror lest it should contain a lawyer's writ. He had
the vaguest ideas about such things ... perhaps they would put him in
prison. To his excited fancy the letters seemed enormous--horrible,
black, menacing, large for all the world to see. What had Aunt Clare
done? His uncle? And then, last of all, had his father any suspicions?
Whether it was the London tailor, or simply the reassuring hand of
custom, his father was certainly not the uncouth person he had seemed
three weeks ago; in fact, Robin was beginning to think him rather
handsome--such muscles and such a chest!--and he really carried himself
very well, and indeed, loose, badly-made clothes suited him rather
well. And then he had changed so in other ways; there was none of that
overwhelming cheerfulness, that terrible hail-fellow-well-met kind of
manner now; he was brief and to the point, he seldom smiled, and surely
it wasn't to be wondered at after the way in which they had treated him
at the family council a week ago.
There had been several occasions lately on which Robin would have liked
to have spoken to his father. He had begun, once, after breakfast, a
halting conversation, but he had only received monosyllables as a
reply--the thing had broken down painfully. And so he went down to his
aunt.
It was her room again, and she was having tea with Uncle Garrett.
Robin remembered the last occasion, only a week ago, when he had made
his confession. He had been afraid of hurting his aunt then, he
remembered. He did not mind very much now ... he saw his aunt and
uncle as two people suddenly grown effete, purposeless, incapable.
They seemed to have changed altogether, which only meant that he was,
at last, finding himself.
There hung a gloom over Clare's tea-table, partly, no doubt, because of
Sir Jeremy--the old man with the wrinkled hands and parchment face
seemed to follow one, noiselessly, remorselessly, through every passage
and into every room ... but there was also something else--that tension
always noticeable in a room where people whose recent action towards
some common goal is undeclared are gathered together; they were waiting
for some one else to make the next move.
And it was Robin who made it, asking at once, as he dropped the sugar
into his cup and balanced for a moment the tongs in the air: "Well,
Aunt Clare, what have you done?"
She noticed at once that he asked it a little scornfully, as though
assured beforehand that she had done very little. There was a note of
antagonism in the way that he had spoken, a hint, even, of challenge.
She knew at once that he had changed during the last week, and again,
knowing as she did of her failure with the girl, and guessing perhaps
at its probable sequence, she hated Harry from the bottom of her heart.
"Done? Why, how, Robin dear? I don't advise those tea-cakes--they're
heavy. I must speak to Wilson--she's been a little careless lately;
those biscuits are quite nice. Done, dear?"
"Yes, aunt--about Miss Feverel. No, I don't want anything to eat,
thanks--it seems only an hour or so since lunch--yes--about--well,
those letters?"
Clare looked up at him pleadingly. He was speaking a little like
Harry; she had noticed during the last week that he had several things
in common with his father--little things, the way that he wrinkled his
forehead, pushed back his hair with his hand; she was not sure that it
was not conscious imitation, and indeed it had seemed to her during the
last week that every day drew him further from herself and nearer to
Harry. She had counted on this affair as a means of reclaiming him,
and now she must confess failure--Oh! it was hard!
"Well, Robin, I have tried----" She paused.
"Well?" he said drily, waiting.
"I'm afraid it wasn't much of a success," she said, trying to laugh.
"I suppose that really I'm not good at that sort of thing."
"At what sort of thing?"
He stood over her like a judge, the certainty of her failure the only
thing that he could grasp. He did not recognise her own love for him,
her fear lest he should be angry; he was merciless as he had been three
weeks ago with his father, as he had been with Dahlia Feverel, and for
the same reason--because each had taken from him some of that armour of
self-confidence in which he had so greatly trusted; the winds of the
heath were blowing about him and he stood, stripped, shivering, before
the world.
"She was not good at that sort of thing"--that was exactly it, exactly
the summary of his new feeling about his aunt and uncle; they were not
able to cope with that hard, new world into which he had been so
suddenly flung--they were, he scornfully considered, "tea-table"
persons, and in so judging them he condemned himself.
"I'm so very sorry, dear. I did my very best. I went to see
the--um--Miss Feverel, and we talked about them. But I'm afraid that I
couldn't persuade her--she seemed determined----"
"What did she say?"
"Oh, very little--only that she considered that the letters were hers
and that therefore she had every right to keep them if she liked. She
seemed to attach some especial, rather sentimental value to them, and
considered, apparently, that it would be quite impossible to give them
up."
"How was she looking--ill?" It had been one of Robin's consolations
during these weeks to imagine her pale, wretched, broken down.
"Oh no, extremely well. She seemed rather amused at the whole affair.
I was not there very long."
"And is that all you have done? Have you, I mean, taken any other
steps?"
"Yes--I wrote yesterday morning. I got an answer this morning."
"What was it?" Robin spoke eagerly. Perhaps his aunt had some surprise
in store and would produce the letters suddenly; surely Dahlia would
not have written unless she had relented.
Clare went to her writing-table and returned with the letter, held
gingerly between finger and thumb.
"I'm afraid it's not very long," she said, laughing nervously, and
again looking at Robin appealingly. "I had written asking her to think
over what she had said to me the day before. She says:
"'DEAR Miss TROJAN--Surely the matter is closed after what happened the
other day? I am extremely sorry that you should be troubled by my
decision; but it is, I am afraid, unalterable.--Yours truly,
D. FEVEREL.'"
"Her decision?" cried Robin quickly. "Had she told you anything? Had
she decided anything?"
"Only that she would keep the letters," answered Clare slowly. "You
couldn't expect me, Robin dear, to argue with her about it. One had,
after all, one's dignity."
"Oh! it's no use!" cried Robin. "She means to use them--of course,
it's all plain enough; we've just got to face it, I suppose"; and then,
as a forlorn hope, turning to his uncle--
"You've done nothing, I suppose, Uncle Garrett?"
His uncle had hitherto taken no part in the discussion, but sat intent
on the book that he was reading. Now he answered, without looking up--
"Yes--I saw the girl."
"You saw her?" from Clare.
"What! Dahlia!" from Robin.
"Yes, I called." He laid the book down on his knee and enjoyed the
effect of his announcement. He could be important for a moment at any
rate, although he must, with his next words, confess failure, so he
prolonged the situation. "Some more tea, Clare, please, and not quite
so strong this time--you might speak about the tea--why not make it
yourself?"
She took his cup and went over to the tea-table. She knew how to play
the game as well as he did, and she showed no astonishment or vulgar
curiosity, but if he had succeeded where she had failed she must change
her hand. She had never thought very much about Garrett; he was a
thorough Trojan--for that she was very grateful, but he had always been
more of an emblem to her than a man. Now if he had got the letters she
was humiliated indeed. Robin would despise her for having failed where
his uncle had succeeded.
"Well, have you got them?"
Robin bent forward eagerly.
"No, not precisely," Garrett answered deliberately. "But I went to see
her----"
"With what result?"
"With no precise result--that is to say, she did not promise to
surrender them--not immediately. But I have every hope----" He paused
mysteriously.
"Of what?" If his uncle had really a chance of getting them, he was
not such a fool after all. Perhaps he was a cleverer man than one gave
him credit for being.
"Well, of course, one has very little ground for any real assertion,
but we discussed the matter at some length. I think I convinced her
that it would be her wisest course to deliver up the letters as soon as
might be, and I assured her that we would let the matter rest there and
take no further steps. I think she was impressed," and he sipped his
tea slowly and solemnly.
"Impressed! Yes, but what has she promised?" Robin cried impatiently.
He knew Dahlia better than they did, and he did not feel somehow that
she was very likely to be impressed with Uncle Garrett. He was not the
kind of man.
"Promised? No, not a precise promise--but she was quite pleasant and
seemed to be open to argument--quite a nice young person."
"Ah! you have done nothing!" There was a note of relief in Clare's
exclamation. "Why not say so at once, Garrett, instead of beating
about the bush? There is an end of it. We have failed, Robin, both of
us; we are where we were before, and what to do next I really don't
know."
It was rather a comfort to drag Garrett into it as well. She was glad
that he had tried; it made her own failure less noticeable.
Robin looked at both of them, gloomily, from the fireplace. Aunt
Clare, handsome, aristocratic, perfectly well fitted to pour out tea in
any society, but useless, useless, useless when it came to the real
thing; Uncle Garrett and his eyeglass, trying to make the most of a
situation in which he had most obviously failed--no, they were no good
either of them, and three weeks ago they had seemed the ultimate
standard by which his own life was to be tested. How quickly one
learnt!
"Well, what is to be done?" he said desperately. "It's plain enough
that she means to stick to the things; and, after all, there can only
be one reason for her doing it--she means to use them. I can see no
way out of it at all--one must just stand up to it."
"We'll think, dear, we'll think," said Clare eagerly. "Ideas are sure
to come if we only wait."
"Wait! But we can't wait!" cried Robin. "She'll move at once.
Probably the letters are in the lawyer's hands already."
"Then there's nothing to be done," said Garrett comfortably, settling
back again into his book--he was, he flattered himself, a man of most
excellent practical sense.
"No, it really seems, Robin, as if we had better wait," said Clare.
"We must have patience. Perhaps after all she has taken no steps."
But Robin was angry. He had long ago forgotten his share in the
business; he had adopted so successfully the rôle of injured sufferer
that his own actions seemed to him almost meritorious. But he was very
angry with them. Here they were, in the face of a family crisis,
deliberately adopting a policy of _laissez-faire_; he had done his best
and had failed, but he was young and ignorant of the world (that at
least he now admitted), but they were old, experienced, wise--or, at
least, they had always seemed to him to stand for experience and
wisdom, and yet they could do nothing--nay, worse--they seemed to wish
to do nothing--Oh! he was angry with them!
The whole room with its silver and knick-knacks--its beautifully worked
cushions and charming water-colours, its shining rows of complete
editions and dainty china stood to him now for incapacity. Three weeks
ago it had seemed his Holy of Holies.
"But we can't wait," he repeated--"we can't! Don't you see, Aunt
Clare, she isn't the sort of girl that waiting does for? She'd never
dream of waiting herself." Dahlia seemed, by contrast with their
complacent acquiescence, almost admirable.
"Well, dear," Clare answered, "your uncle and I have both tried--I
think that we may be alarming ourselves unnecessarily. I must say she
didn't seem to me to bear any grudge against you. I daresay she will
leave things as they are----"
"Then why keep the letters?"
"Oh, sentiment. It would remind her, you see----"
But Robin could only repeat--"No, she's not that kind of girl," and
marvel, perplexedly, at their short-sightedness.
And then he approached the point--
"There is, of course," he said slowly, "one other person who might help
us----" He paused.
Garrett put his book down and looked up. Clare leaned towards him.
"Yes?" Clare looked slightly incredulous of any suggested remedy--but
apparently composed and a little tired of all this argument. But, in
reality, her heart was beating furiously. Had it come at last?--that
first mention of his father that she had dreaded for so many days.
"I really cannot think----" from Garrett.
"Why not my father?"
Again it seemed to Clare that she and Harry were struggling for Robin
... since that first moment of his entry they had struggled--she with
her twenty years of faithful service, he with nothing--Oh! it was
unfair!
"But, Robin," she said gently--"you can't--not, at least, after what
has happened. This is an affair for ourselves--for the family."
"But _he_ is the family!"
"Well, in a sense, yes. But his long absence--his different way of
looking at things--make it rather hard. It would be better, wouldn't
it, to settle it here, without its going further."
"To _settle_ it, yes--but we can't--we don't--we are leaving things
quite alone--waiting--when we ought to do something."
Robin knew that she was showing him that his father was still outside
the circle--that for herself and Uncle Garrett recent events had made
no difference.
But was he outside the circle? Why should he be? At any rate he would
soon be head of the House, and then it would matter very little----
"Also," Clare added, "he will scarcely have time just now. He is with
father all day--and I don't see what he could do, after all."
"He could see her," said Robin slowly. He suddenly remembered that
Dahlia had once expressed great admiration for his father--she was the
very woman to like that kind of man. A hurried mental comparison
between his father and Uncle Garrett favoured the idea.
"He could see her," he said again. "I think she might like him."
"My dear boy," said Garrett, "take it from me that what a man could do
I've done. I assure you it's useless. Your father is a very excellent
man, but, I must confess, in my opinion scarcely a diplomat----"
"Well, at any rate it's worth trying," cried Robin impatiently. "We
must, I suppose, eat humble pie after the things you said to him, Aunt
Clare, the other day, but I must confess it's the only chance. He will
be decent about it, I'm sure--I think you scarcely realise how nasty it
promises to be."
"Who is to ask?" said Garrett.
"I will ask him," said Clare suddenly. "Perhaps after all Robin is
right--he might do something."
It might, she thought, be the best thing. Unless he tried, Robin would
always consider him capable of succeeding--but he should try and
fail--fail! Why, of course he would fail.
"Thank you, Aunt Clare." Robin walked to the door and then turned:
"Soon would be best"--then he closed the door behind him.
His father was coming down the stairs as he passed through the hall.
He saw him against the light of the window and he half turned as though
to speak to him--but his father gave no sign; he looked very
stern--perhaps his grandfather was dead.
The sudden fear--the terror of death brought very close to him for the
first time--caught him by the throat.
"He is not dead?" he whispered.
"He is asleep," Harry said, stopping for a moment on the last step of
the stairs and looking at him across the hall--"I am afraid that he
won't live through the night."
They had both spoken softly, and the utter silence of the house, the
heaviness of the air so that it seemed to hang in thick clouds above
one's head, drove Robin out. He looked as though he would speak, and
then, with bent head, passed into the garden.
He felt most miserably lonely and depressed--if he hadn't been so old
and proud he would have hidden in one of the bushes and cried. It was
all so terrible--his grandfather, that weighty, eerie impression of
Death felt for the first time, the dreadful uncertainty of the Feverel
affair, all things were quite enough for misery, but this feeling of
loneliness was new to him.
He had always had friends, but even when they had failed him there had
been behind them the House--its traditions, its records, its
history--his aunt and uncle, and, most reassuring of all, himself.
But now all these had failed him. His friends were vaguely
unattractive; Randal was terribly superficial, he was betraying the
House; his aunt and uncle were unsatisfactory, and for himself--well,
he wasn't quite so splendid as he had once thought. He was wretchedly
dissatisfied with it all and felt that he would give all the polish and
culture in the world for a simple, unaffected friendship in which he
could trust.
"Some one," he said angrily, "that would do something"--and his
thoughts were of his father.
It was dark now, and he went down to the sea, because he liked the
white flash of the waves as they broke on the beach--this sudden
appearing and disappearing and the rustle of the pebbles as they turned
slowly back and vanished into the night again.
He liked, too, the myriad lights of the town: the rows of lamps, rising
tier on tier into the night sky, like people in some great amphitheatre
waiting in silence for the rising of a mighty curtain. He always
thought on these nights of Germany--Germany, Worms, the little
bookseller, the distant gleam of candles in the Cathedrals, the flash
of the sun through the trees over the Rhine, the crooked, cobbled
streets at night with the moon like a lamp and the gabled roofs
flinging wild shadows over the stones ... the night-sea brought it very
close and carried Randal and Cambridge and Dahlia Feverel very far
away, although he did not know why.
He watched the light of the town and the waves and the great flashing
eye of the lighthouse and then turned back. As he climbed the steps up
the cliff he heard some one behind him, and, turning, saw that it was
Mary Bethel. She said "Good-night" quickly and was going to pass him,
but he stopped her.
"I haven't seen you for ages, Mary," he said. He resolved to speak to
her. She knew his father and had always been a good sort--perhaps she
would help him.
"Are you coming back, Robin?" she said, stopping and smiling. There
was a lamp at the top of the cliff where the road ran past the steps,
and by the light of it he saw that she had been crying. But he was too
much occupied with his own affairs to consider the matter very deeply,
and then girls cried so easily.
"Yes," he said, "let us go round by the road and the Chapel--it's a
splendid night; besides, we don't seem to have met recently. We've
both been busy, I suppose, and I've a good deal to talk about."
"If you like," she said, rather listlessly. It would, at least, save
her from her own thoughts and protect her perhaps from the ceaseless
repetition of that scene of three days ago when she had turned the man
that she loved more than all the world away and had lied to him because
she was proud.
And so at first she scarcely listened to him. They walked down the
road that ran along the top of the cliff and the great eye of the
lighthouse wheeled upon them, flashed and vanished; she saw the room
with its dingy carpet and wide-open window, and she heard his voice
again and saw his hands clenched--oh! she had been a fine fool! So it
was little wonder that she did not hear his son.
But Robin had at last an audience and he knew no mercy. All the
agitation of the last week came pouring forth--he lost all sense of
time and place; he was at the end of the world addressing infinity on
the subject of his woes, and it says a good deal for his vanity and not
much for his sense of humour that he did not feel the lack of
proportion in such a position.
"It was a girl, you know--perhaps you've met her--a Miss
Feverel--Dahlia Feverel. I met her at Cambridge and we got rather
thick, and then I wrote to her--rot, you know, like one does--and when
I wanted to get back the letters she wouldn't let me have them, and
she's going to use them, I'm afraid, for--well--Breach of Promise!"
He paused and waited for the effect of the announcement, but it never
came; she was walking quickly, with her head lifted to catch the wind
that blew from the sea--he could not be certain that she had heard.
"Breach of Promise!" he repeated impressively. "It would be rather an
awful thing for people in our position if it really came to that--it
would be beastly for me. Of course, I meant nothing by it--the
letters, I mean--a chap never does. Everybody at Cambridge talks to
girls--the girls like it--but she took it seriously, and now she may
bring it down on our heads at any time, and you can't think how beastly
it is waiting for it to come. We've done all we could--all of us--and
now I can tell you it's been worrying me like anything wondering what
she's done. My uncle and aunt both tried and failed; I was rather
disappointed, because after all one would have thought that they would
be able to deal with a thing like that, wouldn't one?"
He paused again, but she only said "Yes" and hurried on.
"So now I'm at my wits' end and I thought that you might help me."
"Why not your father?" she said suddenly.
"Ah! that's just it," he answered eagerly. "That's where I wanted you
to give me your advice. You see--well, it's a little hard to
explain--we weren't very nice to the governor when he came back
first--the first day or two, I mean. He was--well, different--didn't
look at things as we did; liked different things and had strong views
about knocking down the Cove. So we went on our way and didn't pay
much attention to him--I daresay he's told you all about it--and I'm
sorry enough now, although it really was largely his own fault! I
don't think he seemed to want us to have much to do with him, and then
one day Clare spoke to him about things and asked him to consider us a
little and he flared up.
"Well, I've a sort of idea that he could help us now--at any rate,
there's no one else. Aunt Clare said that she would ask him, but you
know him better than any of us, and, of course, it is a little
difficult for us, after the way that we've spoken to him; you might
help us, I thought."
He couldn't be sure, even now, that Mary had been listening--she looked
so strange this evening that he was afraid of her, and half wished that
he had kept his affairs to himself. She was silent for a moment,
because she was wondering what it was that Harry had really done about
the letters. It was amusing, because they obviously didn't know that
she had told him--but what had he done?
"Do you want me to help you, Robin?" she asked.
"Yes, of course," he answered eagerly. "You know him so well and could
get him to do things that he would never do for us. I'm afraid of him,
or rather have been just lately. I don't know what there is about him
exactly."
"You want me to help you?" she asked again. "Well then, you've got to
put up with a bit of my mind--you've caught me in a bad mood, and I
don't care whether it hurts you or not--you're in for a bit of plain
speaking."
He looked up at her with surprise, but said nothing.
"Oh, I know I'm no very great person myself," she went on
quickly--almost fiercely. "I've only known in the last few weeks how
rotten one can really be, but at least I have known--I do know--and
that's just what you don't. We've been friends for some time, you and
I--but if you don't look out, we shan't be friends much longer."
"Why?" he asked quietly.
"You were never very much good," she went on, paying no attention to
his question, "and always conceited, but that was your aunt's fault as
much as any one's, and she gave you that idea of your family--that you
were God's own chosen people and that no one could come within speaking
distance of you--you had that when you were quite a little boy, and you
seem to have thought that that was enough, that you need never do
anything all your life just because you were a Trojan. Eton helped the
idea, and when you went up to Cambridge you were a snob of the first
order. I thought Cambridge would knock it out of you, but it didn't;
it encouraged you, and you were always with people who thought as you
did, and you fancied that your own little corner of the earth--your own
little potato-patch--was better than every one else's gardens; I
thought you were a pretty poor thing when you came back from Cambridge
last year, but now you've beaten my expectations by a good deal----"
"I say----" he broke in--"really I----" but she went on unheeding--
"Instead of working and doing something like any decent man would, you
loafed along with your friends learning to tie your tie and choosing
your waistcoat-buttons; you go and make love to a decent girl and then
when you've tired of her tell her so, and seem surprised at her hitting
back.
"Then at last when there is a chance of your seeing what a man is
like--that he isn't only a man who dresses decently like a tailor's
model--when your father comes back and asks you to spend a few of your
idle hours with him, you laugh at him, his manners, his habits, his
friends, his way of thinking; you insult him and cut him dead--your
father, one of the finest men in the world. Why, you aren't fit to
brush his clothes!--but that isn't the worst! Now--when you find
you're in a hole and you want some one to help you out of it and you
don't know where to turn, you suddenly think of your father. He wasn't
any good before--he was rough and stupid, almost vulgar, but now that
he can help you, you'll turn and play the dutiful son!
"That's you as you are, Robin Trojan--you asked me for it and you've
got it; it's just as well that you should see yourself as you are for
once in your life--you'll forget it all again soon enough. I'm not
saying it's only you--it's the lot of you--idle, worthless, snobbish,
empty, useless. Help you? No! You can go to your father yourself and
think yourself lucky if he will speak to you."
Mary stopped for lack of breath. Of course, he couldn't know that
she'd been attacking herself as much as him, that, had it not been for
that scene three days ago, she would never have spoken at all.
"I say!" he said quietly, "is it really as bad as that? Am I that sort
of chap?"
"Yes. You know it now at least."
"It's not quite fair. I am only like the rest. I----"
"Yes, but why should you be? Fancy being proud that you are like the
rest! One of a crowd!"
They turned up the road to her house, and she began to relent when she
saw that he was not angry.
"No," he said, nodding his head slowly, "I expect you're about right,
Mary. Things have been happening lately that have made everything
different--I've been thinking ... I see my father differently...."
Then, "How could you?" she cried. "_You_ to cut him and turn him out?
Oh! Robin! you weren't always that sort----"
"No," he answered. "I wasn't once. In Germany I was different--when I
got away from things--but it's harder here"--and then again
slowly--"But am I really as bad as that, Mary?"
Sudden compunction seized her. What right had she to speak to him?
After all, he was only a boy, and she was every bit as bad herself.
"Oh! I don't know!" she said wearily. "I'm all out of sorts to-night,
Robin. We're neither of us fit to speak to him, and you've treated him
badly, all of you--I oughtn't to have spoken as I did, perhaps; but
here we are! You'd better forget it, and another day I'll tell you
some of the nice things about you----"
"Am I that sort of chap?" he said again, staring in front of him with
his hand on the gate. She said good-night and left him standing in the
road. He turned up the hill, with his head bent. He was scarcely
surprised and not at all angry. It only seemed the climax to so many
things that had happened lately--"a snob"--"a pretty poor thing"--"You
don't work, you learn to choose your waistcoat-buttons"--that was the
kind of chap he was. And his father: "One of the finest men there
is----" He'd missed his chance, perhaps, he would never get it again!
But he would try!
He passed into the garden and fumbled for his latch-key. He would
speak to his father to-morrow!
Mary was quite right ... he _was_ a "pretty poor thing!"