Mr. Edmund Pym was evidently embarrassed, and did not stay long. Hugh pitied him, and accompanying him to the end of the ward apologised for the irascibility of the patient, which was not only natural after the shock, but was, if anything, a favorable symptom, &c.
“Oh! I am accustomed to my brother, Mr. Paull,” he said, with a gentleness that touched the young house-surgeon. “He is naturally irritable. We take it for what it is worth. He has had a great deal of trouble in his life, and it has soured him. And he is quite a recluse. But he has a good heart, a wonderfully kind heart.”
Then he thanked Hugh for his attention to the patient and hurried off, evidently relieved that the visit was over.
“H’m!” muttered Hugh to himself, as he slowly returned to the patient. “H’m! It strikes me that my pessimistic friend is, like most pessimists, a bit of a Tartar.”
Sir Roderick welcomed him with a forced smile.
“I daresay you think me ungracious?” he said, his long, withered hand nervously fingering the bedclothes. “I’m not—at least, not exactly. I can put up with my brother when I’m well, but just now I can’t. The fact is, he is one of the most woman-ridden men on the face of the earth. His wife is a bigot and a snob, and brings up her daughters bigots and snobs. And they rule him. Rule him? They sit upon him. They drive him, like the old donkey he is. He was always the same. At school they called him Neddy, because he took everything so meekly. It used to enrage me, youngster as I was. I used to say to him: ‘Man, why can’t you hold up your head?’ And I’ve gone on saying it to him all through life. If there’s one thing I despise, it’s a man who can’t hold up his head and defend himself.”
“Against the women?” suggested Hugh. He had seated himself in the chair he had offered Mr. Pym. His arms were folded. He saw that he must treat Sir Roderick boldly, if they were to be friends. And some inward feeling told him that Fate, or Providence, had brought them together—that at least they were to be well acquainted with each other, if nothing more. “I am afraid, sir, that you are a woman-hater.”
He half expected his patient to turn upon him somewhat after the manner in which he had snubbed his brother, in which case he would have left the old gentleman to himself, as far as conversation went, for the future. Instead, Sir Roderick smiled, and seemed gratified.
“No, Hamlet, my friend,” he said, with a sort of pleased chuckle, leaning back against his pillows. “You must excuse my calling you Hamlet, but with your serious speculative nature, the name seems to fit you exactly. No, I am no woman-hater. I know we can’t do without them. But I object to them out of their proper place, as I object to cats out of the kitchen, or mastiffs and Newfoundlands in the drawing-room. The drudge woman and the ornamental woman are necessary evils. When strictly kept under, they serve their purpose. But bowed down to and worshipped as my unfortunate brother fetishes his womankind, they are only fit for extermination—as if they were so many rats.” He spoke viciously. Then turning to Hugh, he said: “I suppose you consider me a barbarian? Like the rest, you adore a petticoat—eh?”
“No,” said Hugh. “But I can’t say I am with you in the extermination idea; I have not known any domineering women. My mother was soft, gentle—more a helpmeet than a companion to my father, who is a very studious man. She was his right hand. His is not a mind to require a second self. My sisters are like her.”