The Three Fates

by F. Marion Crawford

“That’s what I call giving Providence a perfectly fair chance,” he said to himself. A few hours after he had reached this conclusion George actually came to the house.

Then Tom Craik hesitated no longer. The whole thing was done and conclusively settled without loss of time, as Craik had always loved to do business.

It is probable that if George had guessed the importance of the simple act of asking after his relation’s condition, he would have gone home without passing the door, and would have spent so much time in reflecting upon his course, that it would have been too late to do anything in the matter. The problem would not have been an easy one to solve, involving, as it did, a question of honesty in motive on the one hand, and a consideration of true justice on the other. If any one had asked him for his advice in a similar case he would have answered with a dry laugh that a man should never neglect his opportunities, that no one would be injured by the transaction, and that the money belonged by right to the family of the man from whom it had been unjustly taken. But though George could affect a cynically practical business tone in talking of other people’s affairs he was not capable of acting upon such principles in his own case. To extract profit of any sort from what was nothing short of hypocrisy would have been impossible to him.

He had been unable to resist the temptation of asking the news, because he sincerely hoped that the old man was about to draw his last breath, and because there seemed to him to be something attractively ironical in the action. He even expected that Mr. Craik would understand that the inquiry was made from motives of hatred rather than of sympathy, and imagined with pleasure that the thought might inflict a sting and embitter his last moments. There was nothing contrary to George’s feelings in that, though he would have flushed with shame at the idea that he was to be misunderstood and that what was intended for an insult was to be rewarded with a splendid fortune.

Very possibly, too, there was a feeling of opposition concerned in his act, for which he himself could not have accounted. He was not fond of advice, and Constance Fearing had seemed very anxious that he should not do what he had done. Being still very young, it seemed absurd to him that a young girl whom he scarcely knew and had only seen twice should interfere with his free will.

This contrariety was wholly unreasoning, and if he had tried to understand it, he would have failed in the attempt. He would certainly not have attributed it to the beginning of a serious affection, for he was not old enough to know how often love’s early growth is hidden by what we take wrongly for an antagonism of feeling.

However all these things may be explained, George Wood felt that he was in a humour quite new to him, when he rang at Tom Craik’s door. He was elated without knowing why, and yet he was full of viciously combative instincts. His heart beat with a pleasant alacrity, and his mind was unusually clear. He would have said that he was happy, and yet his happiness was by no means of the kind which makes men at peace with their surroundings or gentle toward those with whom they have to do. There was something overbearing in it, that agreed with his natural temper and that found satisfaction in what was meant for an act of unkindness.

He found his father reading before the fire. The old gentleman read, as he did everything else, with the air of a man who is performing a serious duty. He sat in a high-backed chair with wooden arms, his glasses carefully adjusted upon his nose, his head held high, his lips set in a look of determination, his long hands holding the heavy volume in the air before his sight and expressive in their solid grasp of a fixed and unalterable purpose. George paused on the threshold, wondering for the thousandth time that so much resolution of character as was visible in the least of his father’s actions, should have produced so little practical result in the struggles of a long life.

“Won’t you shut that door, George?” said Jonah Wood, not looking away from his book nor moving a muscle.

George did as he was requested and came slowly forward. He stood still for a moment before the fireplace, spreading his hands to the blaze.