Hugh had a momentary impulse to shout with laughter, but checked it for subtle methods. In spite of the desire to laugh, too, he was beginning to feel, understanding as he now did, the probable though scarcely credible purpose of this conversation, rather angry.
“Dick, I don’t think it is right, especially for a person in your position, to rake up old scandals,” he said gravely.
“Then you do know Edith knows?” asked Dick.
“It is taught in the elementary schools,” said Hugh.
The upper lip lengthened further.
“Then to come to the point. Do you think it is right to read, here in Mannington, a paper dealing with that situation, and to discuss it—discuss it afterward?”
They had come to the stile leading into the field by the Rectory, and Hugh sat down on it. His amusement had died away.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“I have no desire to preach to you,” said Dick, instantly beginning to do so, “and my last question was one that one scarcely wants answered, because the answer is foregone. I am willing to believe that both you and Edith overlooked the real, the moral facts of the case, in your attention to a certain historical interest which must always attach to the lives of great men, for, of course, Nelson, considered as a sailor, and indeed as one of the makers of England, was a great man. But, my dear fellow, that does not excuse our dwelling, as in these private letters we must dwell, on the darker side of his character. And now for a practical suggestion: couldn’t she, without much trouble, extract from her paper some little essay about Trafalgar, and the disposal of the fleet, instead of these letters, which, I believe, deal with other things? We may think with pride of Trafalgar, but for the rest? It is the rest of which these private letters, I make no doubt, deal.”
“Oh, you haven’t read them then?” asked Hugh. “It’s ‘Gambits’ over again, is it? You know the subject from some review and can pronounce on it all right?”