“You never were more mistaken in your life, Arthur,” said Hugh with perfect truth and much coolness.
“Now, why won’t you take the credit of having some fine feelings to repress?” said Arthur, who was often guilty of trying to get a rise out of Hugh for the benefit of the younger ones.
But Hugh was so unmoved that he did not even reply that he did not care about credit.
“You’ll get a scratch some day, Arthur,” said James, who nearest in age to Hugh, and exempt from his authority might say what he pleased.
“Oh no, he won’t,” said Hugh, with a not unpleasant smile. “At least, if he does, I shall be much ashamed of myself.”
“What?” said Arthur, “I should respect myself for ever if I could put Hugh in a rage.”
“People should never be in a rage,” said Hugh—“they should control themselves.”
“If they can,” said Arthur, conscious of the minor triumph of having caused Hugh to be very sententious.
Hugh was silent. It is one thing to have a theory of life, and quite another to mould your character and tame your passions into accordance with it. Years before, when Hugh was at Oxford and James had just left school for a public office; they, in the curious repetition and reversal of human events, had come across a certain Miss Ribstone, the daughter of their mother’s old admirer, to whose many charms Hugh, then scarcely twenty, fell a victim. For one whole long vacation he had ridden, danced, talked fun and sentiment with her, until the whole thing had been put an end to by the announcement of her engagement to—somebody else. Then Hugh’s pride and self-control proved weak defences against the sudden shock, and he met the girl and her half-saucy, half-sentimental demand for congratulations with such passionate reproaches as she never forgot. Probably she deserved them, but the mortification of having so betrayed himself, almost killed regret in Hugh’s bosom. “It was not my fault, I was not to blame,” he said to his brother. “I should have remembered that,” and as he spoke he made a holocaust of all the notes and flowers and ribbons he had hitherto cherished.
“Dear me,” said sentimental James, “what a pity, I keep dozens of them.”