"Rather nice to think that there are so many good and innocent people in
the world, isn't it," Barney remarked, when he, Palgrave and Oldmeadow
were left to their wine and cigars. It was evident that he would have
preferred to omit the masculine interlude, but Oldmeadow was resolved on
the respite. She had touched him because she was so unaware; but he was
weary and disconcerted. How could Barney be unaware? And was he?
Altogether? His comment seemed to suggest a suspicion that Miss Toner's
flow might have aroused irony or require justification.
"Miss Toner and her mother seem to have found the noble and the gifted
under every bush," he remarked, and he was not sure that he wished to
avoid irony though he knew that he did wish to conceal it from Barney.
"It's very good and innocent to be able to do that; but one may keep
one's goodness at the risk of one's discrimination. Not that Miss Toner
is at all stupid."
Palgrave neither smoked nor drank. He had again leaned his elbows on the
table and his head on his fists, but, while Oldmeadow spoke, he lifted
and kept his gaze on him. "You don't like her," he said suddenly. He and
Oldmeadow had, irrepressibly, over Mrs. Chadwick's conception of
materialism, interchanged their smile at dinner; but since the morning
Oldmeadow had known that Palgrave suspected him of indifference, perhaps
even hostility, towards the new-comer. "Why don't you like her?" the
boy went on and with a growing resentment as his suspicions found voice.
"She _isn't_ stupid; that's just it. She's good and noble and innocent;
and gifted, too. Why should we pretend to be too sophisticated to
recognize such beauty when we meet it? Why should we be ashamed of
beauty--afraid of it?"
Barney, flushing deeply, looked down into his wine-glass.
"My dear Palgrave, I don't understand you," said Oldmeadow. But he did.
He seemed to hear the loud beating of Palgrave's heart. "I don't dislike
Miss Toner. How should I? I don't know her."
"You do know her. That's an evasion. It's all there. She can't be seen
without being known. It's all there; at once. I don't know why you don't
like her. It's what I want to know."
"Drop it, Palgrave," Barney muttered. "Let Roger alone. He and Adrienne
get on very well together. It's no good forcing things."
"I'm not forcing anything. It's Roger who forces his scepticism and his
satire on us," Palgrave declared.
"I'm sorry to have displeased you," said Oldmeadow with a slight
severity. "I am unaware of having displayed my disagreeable qualities
more than is usual with me."
"Of course not. What rot, Palgrave! Roger is always disagreeable, bless
him!" Barney declared with a forced laugh. "Adrienne understands him
perfectly. As he says: she isn't stupid."
"Oh, all right. I'm sorry," Palgrave rose, thrusting his hands in his
pockets and looking down at the two as he stood above them. He hesitated
and then went on: "All I know is that for the first time in my
life--the very first time, mind you--all the things we are told about in
religion, all the things we read about in poetry, the things we're
supposed to care for and live by, have been made real to me--outside of
books and churches. What do we ever see of them at home here, with dear
Mummy and the girls? What do we ever talk of, all of us--but the
everlasting round--hunting, gardening, cricket, hay; village treats and
village charities. A lot of chatter about people--What a rotter
So-and-so is; and How perfectly sweet somebody else: and a little about
politics--Why doesn't somebody shoot Lloyd George?--and How wicked Home
Rulers are. That's about all it amounts to. Oh, I know we're not as
stupid as we sound. _She_ sees that. We can feel things and see things
though we express ourselves like savages. But we're too comfortable to
think; that's what's the trouble with us. We don't want to change; and
thought means change. And we're shy; idiotically shy; afraid to express
anything as it really comes to us; so that I sometimes wonder if things
will go on coming; if we shan't become like the Chinese--a sort of
_objet d'art_ set of people, living by rote, in a rut. Well. That's all
I mean. With her one isn't ashamed or afraid to know and say what one
feels. With her one wants to feel more. And I, for one, reverence her
and am grateful to her for having made beauty and goodness real to me."
Having so delivered himself, Palgrave, who had, after his deep flush,
become pale, turned away and marched out of the room.
The older men sat silent for a moment, Oldmeadow continuing to smoke and
Barney turning the stem of his wine-glass in his fingers. "I'm awfully
sorry," he said at last. "I can't think what's got into the boy. He's in
rather a moil just now, I fancy."
"He's a dear boy," said Oldmeadow. "There's any amount of truth in what
he says. He's at an age when one sees these things, if one is ever going
to see them. I hope he'll run straight. He ought to amount to
something."
"That's what Adrienne says," said Barney. "She says he's a poet. You
think, too, then, that we're all in such a rut; living Chinese lives;
automata?"
"It's the problem of civilization, isn't it, to combine automatism with
freedom. Without a rut to walk in you reach nowhere--if we're to walk
together. And yet we must manage to ramble, too; individuals must;
that's what it comes to, I suppose. Individuals must take the risk of
rambling and alter the line of the rut for the others. Palgrave may be a
rambler. But I hope he won't go too far afield."
"You do like her, Roger, don't you?" said Barney suddenly.
It had had to come. Oldmeadow knew that, as the depth of silence fell
about them. It was inevitable between them, of course. Yet he wished it
might have been avoided, since now it must be too late. He pressed out
the glow of his cigar and leaned his arms on the table, not looking at
his friend while he meditated, and he said finally--and it might seem,
he knew, another evasion--"Look here, Barney, I must tell you something.
You know how much I care about Nancy. Well, that's the trouble. It's
Nancy I wanted you to marry."
Barney had held himself ready and a deep, involuntary sigh of relief, or
of postponed suspense, now escaped him. "I see. I didn't realize that,"
he said. And how he hoped, poor Barney! it was all there was to realize!
"Of course I'm very fond of Nancy."
"You realize, of course, how fond she is of you."
"Well; yes; of course. We're both awfully good pals," said Barney,
confused.
"That's what Palgrave would call speaking like a savage, Barney. Own to
it that if Miss Toner hadn't appeared upon the scene you could have
hoped to make Nancy your wife. I don't say you made love to her or
misled her in any way. I'm sure you never meant to at any rate. But the
fact remains that you were both so fond of each other that you would
certainly have married. So you'll understand that when I come down here
and find Miss Toner installed as tutelary goddess over you all, what I'm
mainly conscious of is grief for my dear little relegated nymph."
Still deeply flushed, but still feeling his relief, Barney turned his
wine-glass and murmured: "I see. I quite understand. Yes; I should have
been in love with her, I own. I nearly was, last winter. As to her being
in love with me, that's a different matter. I've no reason to think she
was in love. It would just be a difference of degree, with Nancy,
wouldn't it; she loves us all so much, and she's really such a child,
still. Of course that's what she seems to me now, since Adrienne's come;
just a darling child."
"I suppose so. But you understand what I feel, too. I feel her much more
than a darling child, and it's difficult for me to like anybody who has
dispossessed her. I perfectly recognize Miss Toner's remarkable
qualities and hope to count myself among her friends one day; but, being
a satirist and a sceptic, I rebel instinctively against goddesses of
whatever brand. Nymphs are good enough for me; and I can't help wishing,
irrepressibly, that nymphs had remained good enough for you, my dear
boy."
"It isn't a question of nymphs; it isn't a question of goddesses,"
Barney said, glancing up now at his friend. "I'm awfully sorry about
Nancy; but of course she'll find some one far better than I am; she's
such a dear. You're not quite straight with me, Roger. I don't see
Adrienne as a goddess at all; I'm not like Palgrave, a silly boy, bowled
over. It's something quite different she does to me. She makes me feel
safe; safe and happy in a way I never imagined possible. It's like
having the sunlight fall about one; it's like life, new life, to be with
her. She's not a goddess; but she's the woman it would break my heart to
part with. I never met such loveliness."
"My dear boy," Oldmeadow murmured. He still leaned on the table and he
still looked down. "I do wish you every happiness, as you know." He was
deeply touched and Barney's quiet words troubled him as he had not
before been troubled.
"Thanks. I know you do. I know you care for my happiness. And I can't
imagine anything coming into my life that would make a difference to us.
That's just it." Barney paused. "It won't, will it, Roger?"
The crisis was again upon them. Oldmeadow did not look up as he said:
"That depends on her, doesn't it?"
"No; it depends on you," Barney quickly replied.
"She likes you, quite immensely, already. She says you make her think of
one of Meredith's dry, deep-hearted heroes," Barney gave a slightly
awkward laugh, deprecating the homage as he offered it. "She says you
are the soul of truth. There's no reason, none whatever, why you
shouldn't be the best of friends, as far as she is concerned. It's all
she asks."
"It's all I ask, of course."
"Yes, I know. But if you don't meet her half-way? Sometimes I do see
what Palgrave means. Sometimes you misunderstand her."
"Very likely. It takes time really to understand people, doesn't it."
But poor Barney was embarked and could not but push on. "As just now,
you know, about finding nobility behind every bush and paying for one's
goodness by losing one's discrimination. There are deep realities and
superficial realities, aren't there, and she sees the deep ones first.
It's more than that. Palgrave says she makes reality. He didn't say it
to me, because I don't think he feels me to be worthy of her. He said it
to Mother, and puzzled her by it. But I know what he means. It's because
of that he feels her to be a sort of saint. Do be straight with me,
Roger. Say what you really think. I'd rather know; much. You've never
kept things from me before," Barney added in a sudden burst of boyish
distress.
"My dear Barney," Oldmeadow murmured.
It had to come, then. He pushed back his chair and turned in it, resting
an arm on the table; and he passed his hand over his head and kept it
there while he stared for a moment hard at the ceiling.
"I think you've made a mistake," he then said.
"A mistake?" Barney faltered blushing. It was not anger; it was pain,
simple, boyish pain that thus confessed itself.
"Yes; a mistake," Oldmeadow repeated, not looking at him, "and since I
fear it's gone too far to be mended, I think it would have been better
if you'd not pressed me, my dear boy."
"How do you mean? I'd rather know, you see," Barney murmured, after a
moment.
"I don't mean about the goodness, or the power," said Oldmeadow. "She is
good, and she has power; but that's in part, I feel, because she has no
inhibitions--no doubts. To know reality we must do more than blow
soap-bubbles with it. It must break us to be known. She's never been
broken. Perhaps she never will be. And in that case she'll go on blind."
Barney was silent for a moment, and that it was not as bad as he had
feared it might be was apparent from the attempted calm with which he
asked, presently: "Why shouldn't you be blind to evil and absurdity if
you can see much further than most people into goodness? Perhaps one
must be one-sided to go far."
"Perhaps. But it's dangerous to be one-sided--to oneself and others. And
does she see further? That's the question. Doesn't she tend, rather, to
accept as first-rate what you incline to find second? You're less strong
than she is, Barney, and less good, no doubt. But you can't deny that
you're less blind. So what you must ask yourself is whether you can be
sure of being happy with a wife who'll never doubt herself and who'll
not see absurdity where you see it. Put it at that. Will you be happy
with her?"
He was, he knew, justified of Miss Toner's commendation, for truth
between friends could go no further and, in the silence, while he
sickened for his friend, he felt it searching Barney's heart. How it
searched, how many echoes it found awaiting it, was proved by the
prolongation of the silence.
"I think you exaggerate," said Barney at length, and in the words
Oldmeadow read his refusal to examine further the truths revealed to
him. "You see all the defects and none of the beauty. It can't be a
mistake if I can see both. She'll learn a little from me, that's what it
comes to, for all the lot I'll have to learn from her. I'll be happy
with her if I'm worthy of her. What it comes to, you see, as I said at
the beginning, is that I can't be happy without her." He rose and
Oldmeadow, rising also, knew that they closed upon an unresolved
discord. Yet these final words of Barney's pleased him so much that he
could not leave it quite at that.
"Mine may be the mistake, after all," he said. "Only you must give me
time to find it out. I began by telling you I couldn't be really
dispassionate; and I feel much better for our talk, if that's any
satisfaction to you. If you can learn from each other and see the truth
together, you'll be happy. You're right there, Barney. That is what it
comes to." They moved towards the door. "Try not to dislike me for my
truth too much," he added.
"My dear old fellow," Barney muttered. He laid his hand for a moment on
his friend's shoulder, standing back for him to pass first. "Nothing can
ever alter things between you and me."
But things were altered already.