‘I have tried to make the sayings of one class fit in with the doings of another. I have thought that right and wrong must be the same everywhere. This was my ignorance. If I had taken up—well, with Gaston’s sort of opinions,’ she added, making an unsuccessful attempt at gaiety, ‘it might be better for me and for him, too, now.’
‘I differ from you,’ said Geff, somewhat coldly. ‘Right and wrong are the same in every class. It would be an excellent thing for your health and spirits to get more change, more society. Stop there! Remain for ever,’ added Geff warmly, ‘in such ignorance as yours.’ And indeed the thought crossed him that, at this hour, what Dinah needed was safer anchorage, not wider ship-room. ‘Your happiness and Gaston’s would be wrecked if you attempted to rule life by any other “sayings” than your own.’
But there was a goodly alloy of mild obstinacy in Dinah Arbuthnot’s character. A given idea started, and she was slow to part with it. The recesses of her mind would seem to shut, with pertinacious closeness, over any decided impression, once made, and the key for opening these recesses could not always be found, even by Dinah herself.
From whatever source the sudden conviction of her narrowness arose, another four-and-twenty hours showed Geoffrey that the conviction was genuine. Dinah had made some kind of compact with herself, not only in the matter of opinions but of conduct. On the following day, Sunday, it happened that Lord Rex walked home with Mrs. Arbuthnot from morning service at the town church. Invited by Gaston, whose easy hospitality extended itself to most men, Lord Rex remained to lunch. He stayed on, long after Gaston’s afternoon engagements had taken him elsewhere. And Dinah, although her cheeks flushed, her spirit chafed, endured this, her first experience in the difficult duties of a hostess, without complaint.
‘Lord Rex Basire kept his Sabbath, it seems, in Miller’s Hotel,’ observed Geff, when the Arbuthnot cousins were smoking, one his short briar pipe, the other a delicately-flavoured cigarette after dinner. Geoffrey’s own Sabbath had been kept in the wards of the hospital, full to overflowing with the survivors of the quarry accident. ‘No wonder Dinah confesses to a headache. That lad’s talk, a nice mixture of slang and assurance, judging from the specimens he gave us at lunch, would scarcely be of the nature Dinah loves.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Basire can be very fair company when he likes,’ said Gaston, with philosophic optimism. ‘He is not a giant, intellectually. But in their heart of hearts, Geff, however unflattering this may be to you and me, women don’t care a straw for intellectual men—until they have been authoritatively labelled. The island ladies, from Madame the Archdeaconess downwards, delight in Lord Rex, title, disabled arm, slang, assurance—all.’
‘Imagine five hours of him at a stretch. That is about what your wife had to live through to-day.’
‘Dinah is rousing herself, I hope and believe. It will do her all the good in the world to live through being bored.’ This was said with amiable imperturbability by Dinah’s husband. ‘I trust, for her own sake, poor girl, she is learning reason, beginning to discover there may be other music in the spheres besides that of the eternal domestic duo without accompaniment.’
Geoffrey Arbuthnot puffed away at his pipe in silence.