"I will fall in with your humor," said Mr. Manners, "and will pay no attention to your amazing evasions; all the more amazing, all the more inexcusable, when adopted towards a man like myself. Do you pretend that you are unacquainted with the person who travelled under the name of Seymour? Do you pretend that travelling in close association with him as you did for so long a time, you had no connection with the designs he was wishful to promote?"
"You remind me strangely," replied Kingsley, "of something which has been troubling me--no, I am wrong in saying troubling me, I mean that has been interesting me. There have undoubtedly been some such designs as you refer to, mysterious and inexplicable enough to me, but the interesting part of the matter is, how did it ever come into my mind that I could have been associated with them? Clearly, I must have evolved the idea out of a too vivid imagination; because I cannot trace the slightest actual connection between me and them. Similarly, too, with the name you have mentioned--Seymour. How did it come into my mind that I knew such a gentleman? Clearly, he must have existed; and now there occurs to me a dim remembrance of a railway accident in which a gentleman of the name of Seymour was killed, and many were injured. How comes the knowledge of that circumstance to me? May I not also have evolved that from my imagination? Anyway, I shall not allow myself to be troubled by matters which I cannot directly trace, though I cannot avoid being interested in them. But what you have said has another bearing, as though I had done something to disgrace my name. Of course such a thing would be impossible, and if I am indebted to any ill-natured person for having aroused in you any suspicion to my hurt, I make him my hearty acknowledgments without bearing the slightest ill-will against him, because, after all, father, a serious calumny should not be allowed to have weight unless an absolute foundation of fact can be brought forward, as cannot be done in my case. Man must be judged by his own actions, not by what people say of him. You infer that this Mr. Seymour travelled to promote infamous designs with which you suppose me to be in sympathy. What designs, father?"
"Republicanism," said Mr. Manners, not displeased at being brought to the point, "Socialism, Communism, and the overthrow of existing institutions, which are a blessing to mankind."
"Ah, but there, you know," said Kingsley, with no departure from his light mood, "you open up debatable matter. It is not disagreeable to me. I was always fond of argument, although I have been accused of too freely wandering away from one upon the slightest excuse. You condemn Republicanism, but I think I would sooner live under a republic than a monarchy."
"What you say confirms the accusation I and others bring against you."
"Not at all. I am merely expressing my view of a large matter. You see, father, there is so much misery in the world, so much undeserved suffering, so much compulsory poverty, such astounding inequalities in the social condition of the people, that a fair-minded man cannot possibly avoid wishing to remedy these ills. What are you touching the bell for?"
"For the servant to show you to the door."
"I do not need him; I know my way out. Your time is valuable, and it is inconsiderate of me to take up so much of it. Is my mother in?"
"No."
"I am sorry; I wished to see her. She is well, I hope."