“You’d refuse to make a child behave itself, through the selfish fear that it would hate you for doing so.”
I laughed. “You know my weakness, I see,” said I.
“There’s the foolish American husband and father. No wonder all the classes that ought to be leaders in development and civilization are leaders only in luxury and folly.”
“Oh, let them have a good time—what they call a good time,” said I. “As you said a moment ago, it doesn’t matter.”
“If it only were a good time—to be ignorant and snobbish and lazy, to drive instead of walking, to eat and drink instead of thinking, to be waited upon instead of getting the education and the happiness that come from serving others. Don’t laugh at me. After all, while you and I—all our sort of men—are greedy, selfish grabbers, making thousands work for us, still we do build up big enterprises, we do set things to moving, and we do teach men the discipline of regular work by forcing them to work for us at more or less useful things.”
No doubt you, gentle reader, have fallen asleep over this conversation. I understand perfectly that it is beyond you; for you have no conception of the deep underlying principles of the relations of men and men or men and women. But there may be among my readers a few who will see interest and importance in this talk with Armitage. It is time the writers of stories concerned themselves with the realities of life instead of with the showy and sensational things that obscure or hide the realities. What would you think of the physiologist who issued a treatise on physiology with no mention or account of the blood? Yet you read stories about what purports to be life with no mention or account of money—this, when in any society money is the all-important factor. Put aside, if you can, the prejudices of your miseducation and æsthetics, of your false culture and your false refinement, open your mind, think, and you will see that I am right.
When we were well down toward the end of the Park, Armitage said: “Pardon me a direct question. Have you and your wife separated?”
“No,” said I. “She has gone abroad to round out Margot’s education—and her own.”
“You know what that means?”
“In a general way,” replied I. “I’m letting them amuse themselves. They don’t need me, nor I them. Perhaps when they come back—” I did not finish my sentence.