“Oh, Camilla!” he broke in, and then laughed. “Did he ask Miss Eunice to come in, too?”
The prospect had its humours—the guilelessness of the solemn preparation to sweep him into the fold with ceremony, with peals of Champney oratory and the calamitous approval of Miss Eunice. It might turn out a joke, and Camilla might be persuaded to see the joke. She sometimes did; that is, she sometimes hovered over the comprehension of a joke, as a bright, peculiar seraph might hover over some muddy absurdity jogging along the highway of this world, but she had so many other emotions to take care of, they shed such prismatic colours around her, that her humour could not always be depended on.
The door-bell rang, and Aidee came in. Hennion felt nearly benevolent, as he shook hands and towered over him. Aidee was slight, black-haired, black-eyed, smooth-faced, and pale. Miss Eunice entered. She had the air of condemning the monstrous world for its rotundity and reckless orbit. Mr. Champney's white head and sunken shoulders loomed behind her. The five sat about the centre-table. A chandelier glittered overhead.
Hennion felt amused and interested in the scene. Mr. Champney's big white head was bowed over and his eyes glowed under shaggy brows; Camilla was breathless and bright with interest; Miss Eunice had her gold-rimmed glasses fixed in qualified approval on Aidee, who was not rotund, though his orbit seemed to be growing reckless. He was on his feet, pacing the floor and talking rapidly. It occurred to Hennion that Aidee was a peculiar man, and at that moment making a masterful speech. He swept together at first a number of general ideas which did not interest Hennion, who looked, in fact, at Camilla. Aidee drew nearer in particulars. Hennion felt himself caught in the centre of a narrowing circle of propositions. He ceased to be amused. It was interesting, but disagreeable. He appreciated the skill of the performance, and returned to dislike the performer, who leaned forward now, with his hands on the table.
“Mr. Hennion, you don't belong to that class of men or that class of ideas. You are doing good work for this city in your profession. You put your right hand to it. We share its benefits. But your left hand is mixed up with something that is not upbuilding, but a sapping of foundations. Here the hopes of our fathers are more than fulfilled, and here they are bitterly disappointed. How do you come to have a share—in both of these results?”
Mr. Champney lifted his brows, appreciating the rhetoric. Camilla's face was flushed with excitement. How glorious! And now, Dick!
Hennion resented the situation. His length and impassiveness helped him, so that he seemed to be holding it easily, but he felt like nothing of that kind. Talking for exhibition, or approval, was a thing his soul abhorred in himself, and observed but curiously in other men. He felt that Camilla expected him to talk with elevation, from the standpoint of a noble sinner now nobly repentant, some such florid circus performance. He felt drawn in obstinacy to mark out his position with matter-of-fact candour. Aidee's rhetoric only emphasised what seemed to Hennion a kind of unreal, gaudy emotionalism.
“I am not in politics, Mr. Aidee. I meet with it as an incident to business. I sometimes do engineering for the city. I am supposed to have a certain amount in preference on contracts, and to give a certain amount of preference on jobs to workmen your city politicians send, provided they're good workmen. Maybe when they vote they understand themselves to be voting for their jobs. They're partly mistaken. I contract with them to suit my business interests, but I never canvass. Probably the ward leaders do. I suppose there's a point in all this affair. I'd rather come to it, if you don't mind. You want me to do personal wire-pulling, which I never do and don't like, in order to down certain men I am under obligations to, which doesn't seem honourable, and against my business interests, which doesn't seem reasonable.”
“Wire-pulling? No.”
“Why, yes. That's what you're doing now, isn't it? You think I'm a wire that pulls a lot of other wires. Of course it's all right, if you like it, or think you have to, but I don't like it, and don't see that I have to.”