"You doubtless have some excellent reason," remarked Arthur smiling down on her.
"I am afraid of them; they are in arms against every thing that is acknowledged to be good."
"And yet they are the most honest men I ever knew," he returned, half musing, and with a little pleased sense of his magnanimity in saying this at a moment when they were probably abusing him.
"I don't know, Arthur. Perhaps they may be honest, but I am sure it is not good for you to be with them. They are so sure that their false views of life are true."
The little sting in the implication that he was not able to resist the influence which had surrounded him was forgotten in the satisfactory view which his wife took of the real value of the judgments of the Pagans. He knew how little she understood them. With every premise upon which her conclusions were founded he disagreed, yet he said to himself that Edith was right; that the Pagans were quite too infallible about every thing. They would have him grope along poor and unknown, he argued with himself, simply for the sake of standing in the position of chronic rebuke to established authorities; with only now and then a chance to get a hearing upon what they assumed to be the true theory of art. What they believed—ah! there after all was the weakness of the whole. What ground had they for their belief? Did he himself really believe any thing, or had he a right to assert in any matter a positive conviction? And even if they or he asserted never so strongly, what sort of a test of truth was that? After all the Philistines, the Calvins, were as likely to be right as were a set of discontented if not disappointed artists; men whose natures would never allow them to be satisfied with any existing state of things, since it would inevitably differ from their dreamy ideals. And it was certainly true that the weight of authority and of numbers was with the Philistines.
"Perhaps you are right, Edith," he said aloud. "I hope so at least, for they are probably indignant enough with me."
"With you? Why?"
"Oh, they choose to think I went over to Philistia when I proposed Mr. Calvin for the St. Filipe. I'm sure I don't see why I haven't a right to propose whom I please."
"But Mr. Calvin, Arthur," responded Edith, who regarded that gentleman as one of the art gods of Boston. "I should think any body would be proud to propose him. Why, he is one of the most distinguished men in the city."
Her husband did not answer for a moment. He looked into the fire and watched his inner consciousness adapt itself to this view of the case, which than himself no one had condemned more bitterly. Yet it was the theory upon which it was necessary to rest did he expect to arrive at any comfort in the course of supporting Mr. Calvin, which he had already pursued so far that retreat was impossible. Yes, he assured himself, he could even accept this. And why not? Did not common opinion confirm it; and however much common opinion might be sneered at, it was surely the voice of the common sense of the world.