"Oh, I'm sorry: There's always so much to look at at the other tables, isn't there?"
"Pretty much the same old lot!" remarked the host—an experienced youth.
"Pretty much!" agreed the Nun serenely.
Chapter XXV.
THE LAST FIGHT.
On a fine Sunday evening in the following autumn Belfield and Andy Hayes sat over their wine, the ladies having, as usual, adjourned to the garden. Among their number were included the Nun and Sally Dutton; a second stay at Meriton had broken down Sally's shyness. Belfield and his wife were just back from London, whither they had gone to see their grandchild, Harry's first-born son. All had gone well, and Belfield was full of impressions of his visit. His natural pleasure in the birth of the child was damped by Harry's refusal to promise to take up his residence at Halton when his turn came.
"But I did get him to promise not to sell—only to let; so his son may live here, though mine won't." He looked older and more frail; his mind moved in a near future which, near as it was, he would not see.
"I sometimes think," he went on, "that the professional moralists, all or most of our preachers of one sort and another—and who doesn't preach nowadays?—take too narrow a view. Their table of virtues isn't comprehensive enough. Now my boy Harry, with all his faults, is never disagreeable. What an enormous virtue! Negative, if you like, but enormous! What a lot of pain and discomfort he doesn't give! All through this domestic business his behaviour has been admirable—so kind, so attentive, so genuinely concerned, so properly gratified. Upon my word, seeing him in his own home, you'd think he was a model! That's a good deal. His weakness comes in to save him there; he must be popular—even in his own house!"
"Oh, this event'll do them no end of good, sir," said Andy, ever ready to clutch again at the elusive skirts of optimism.
"Some, no doubt," Belfield cautiously agreed. "And she's a brave woman—I'll say that for her. She understands him, and she loves him. When I saw her, we had a reconciliation on that basis. We let the past alone—I wasn't anxious to meet her on that ground—and made up our minds to the future. Her work is to keep things going, to prevent a smash. She must shut her eyes sometimes—pretty often, I'm afraid. He'll always be very pleasant to her, if she'll do that. In fact, the worse he's behaving the pleasanter the rogue will be. I know him of old in that."