The Canon read very attentively, pausing every now and then to turn back a page or two, as though comparing inconsistencies of text, and sometimes also turning on a page or two ahead, as if desirous of establishing the certainty that a conclusion was eventually to be attained. His eyebrows worked as he read, after a fashion habitual with him.
There had been evenings when Flora had made the slightest of pencil sketches, hardly caricaturing, but embodying, this peculiarity, for her father’s subsequent indulgent amusement. But no such artistic pleasantry was undertaken tonight. The atmosphere did not lend itself to pleasantry of any kind.
At last the Canon closed the volume, laid it down, and removed his glasses with some deliberation.
“Dear lad, I am disappointed.”
“I was afraid you would be.”
“Is this quite worthy of you?”
Owen felt that a reply either in the affirmative or in the negative, would be equally unsatisfactory, and made none.
“You have adopted the tone of the day to an extent for which I was by no means prepared,” the Canon said gently. “I am sorry for it, Owen—very sorry. I think you have heard me speak before of my dislike for the modern note, that emphasises the material aspect, that miscalls ugliness realism, and coarseness strength. Forgive me, dear Owen, if I hurt you, but this—this trivial flippancy of yours, has hurt me.”
Owen had no doubt that Canon Morchard spoke the truth.
“How emphatically he belongs to the generation that took the errors of other people to heart,” Quentillian reflected.