"I think not."
"Men will say so."
"I don't care a straw what men say, or women."
"And you to come back in the same ship with me and my wife! You couldn't do it. The Fields wouldn't receive you." Gordon bethought himself whether this imagined rejection might not arise rather from the character of his travelling companions. "To bring back the mother of three little sainted babes, and then to walk in upon every shilling of property which had belonged to their father! You never could hold up your head in Kimberley again."
"I should have to stand abashed before your virtue?"
"Yes, you would. I should be known to have come back with my poor repentant wife,—the mother of three dear babes. And she would be known to have returned with her misguided husband. The humanity of the Fields would not utter a word of reproval to either of us. But, upon my word, I should not like to stand in your shoes. And how you could sit opposite to her and look her in the face on the journey out, I don't know."
"It would be unpleasant."
"Deuced unpleasant, I should say. You remember the old Roman saying, 'Never be conscious of anything within your own bosom.' Only think how you would feel when you were swelling it about in Kimberley, while that poor lady won't be able to buy a pair of boots for herself or her children. I say nothing about myself. I didn't think you were the man to do it;—I didn't indeed."
Gordon did find himself moved by the diversity of lights through which he was made to look at the circumstances in question. In the first place, there was the journey back with Mr Tookey and his wife, companions he had not anticipated. The lady would probably begin by soliciting his intimacy, which on board ship he could hardly refuse. With a fellow-passenger, whose husband has been your partner, you must quarrel bitterly or be warm friends. Upon the whole, he thought that he could not travel to South Africa with Mr and Mrs Fitzwalker Tookey. And then he understood what the man's tongue would do if he were there for a month in advance. The whole picture of life, too, at the Fields was not made attractive by Mr Tookey's description. He was not afraid of the reception which might be accorded to Mrs Tookey, but saw that Tookey found himself able to threaten him with violent evils, simply because he would claim his own. Then there shot across his brain some reminiscence of Mary Lawrie, and a comparison between her and her life and the sort of life which a man must lead under the auspices of Mrs Tookey. Mary Lawrie was altogether beyond his reach; but it would be better to have her to think of than the other to know. His idea of the diamond-fields was disturbed by the promised return of his late partner and his wife.
"And you mean to reduce me to this misery?" asked Mr Tookey.