“Certainly,” said Kenelm, with an emphasis which startled the merchant. “That is an admirable maxim of yours: it seems a commonplace, yet how often, when it is put into our heads, it strikes as a novelty! A duty may be a very difficult thing, a very disagreeable thing, and, what is strange, it is often a very invisible thing. It is present,—close before us, and yet we don’t see it; somebody shouts its name in our ears, ‘Duty,’ and straight it towers before us a grim giant. Pardon me if I leave you: I can’t stay to dine. Duty summons me elsewhere. Make my excuses to Mrs. Braefield.”
Before Mr. Braefield could recover his self-possession, Kenelm had vaulted over a stile and was gone.
CHAPTER VI.
KENELM walked into the shop kept by the Somerses, and found Jessie still at the counter. “Give me back my knap sack. Thank you,” he said, flinging the knapsack across his shoulders. “Now, do me a favour. A portmanteau of mine ought to be at the station. Send for it, and keep it till I give further directions. I think of going to Oxford for a day or two. Mrs. Somers, one more word with you. Think, answer frankly, are you, as you said this morning, thoroughly happy, and yet married to the man you loved?”
“Oh, so happy!”
“And wish for nothing beyond? Do not wish Will to be other than he is?”
“God forbid! You frighten me, sir.”
“Frighten you! Be it so. Everyone who is happy should be frightened lest happiness fly away. Do your best to chain it, and you will, for you attach Duty to Happiness; and,” muttered Kenelm, as he turned from the shop, “Duty is sometimes not a rose-coloured tie, but a heavy iron-hued clog.”
He strode on through the street towards the sign-post with “To Oxford” inscribed thereon. And whether he spoke literally of the knapsack, or metaphorically of duty, he murmured, as he strode,—