“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.”