According to Plato

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“I am about to offer for your consideration a time-study,” said Mr. Richmond, when he had tapped the tubular end of his quill pen upon the edge of his desk. “Last week I had a most satisfactory response to the home exercise on the ‘Honest Doubter’ form of fiction, but I must say here lest I should forget it, that I think it was unnecessary to define, as some of the class did, the doubts of the Honest Doubter. It was also a technical error to clear away his doubts. Of course there is a good deal to say in favour of the domestic treatment of the theme, adopted by some of the class. Marrying him to an estimable and brainless woman, and showing his doubts cleared away as he stands alone in the nursery looking at the face of his sleeping child, is an excellent suburban view to take of the Honest Doubter; nine ladies were most successful in their treatment of the subject on these lines; but I regret to say that not one of them thought of the moonlight. A moment’s reflection should be sufficient to convince any one of the impossibility of banishing a strong man’s doubts in the afternoon, or before lunch. He must be brought full into the moonlight. The technical phrase is: ‘There; with the moonlight of heaven streaming through the nursery window upon the little face of his child, the strong man felt his heart soften and become once more as the heart of a little child. All the doubts that had clung to him for years as the mists cling to the moor fled away, as those same mists melt into the moonlight. He felt that a new day was breaking for him, a new light, he looked down at the little sleeping face, and cried—‘you can make him say anything you please: but he must say it when the moon is full. Still, I repeat the papers were most satisfactory as a whole. Now, the Time Study for to-day is on a very different theme; but it is one which I hope will appeal to the imagination of a good many in the class. The headings are these: Given, a young man—well, not perhaps, very young—let us say, a still young man, of good family, but by the force of circumstances for which he is not responsible—undeserved misfortune—compelled to become a tutor in a family of distinction; he falls in love with the beautiful daughter of the house; but he is too proud to confess his love, he is too modest to reveal himself to her. He has his hopes—sometimes they are strong when she smiles upon him, and then he thinks of his own humble position and he is on the verge of despair. Required the conclusion of the story: the happy accident by which he is enabled to reveal himself.”

In a second a dozen at least of the young women in the class were writing away for dear life, only a few thought it necessary to give any preliminary consideration to the problem suggested by Mr. Richmond. The little governess, however, who sat at a distant desk, could not write on account of her tears, and the half pay veteran was laboriously mending his quill pen. Amber, who used a reservoir pen, and had never seen a quill being mended, watched the operation with a curious interest.

She had no intention of making an attempt to work out the theme. The truth was that her heart was beginning to soften towards Josephine, and she came to the conclusion that in adopting so drastic a scheme of retaliation for Josephine’s secrecy respecting her engagement to Mr. Clifton, she was showing herself to be very hard-hearted. She felt that she should have waited at home to kiss Josephine when she should call.

She made up her mind not to remain at the school for the Aunt Dorothy class which followed the Time-Study class, but to hasten to the side of her friend, and if she failed to find her at home, she would drive back to her own home, and catch her there, and then—well, perhaps Lord Lullworth would drop in for tea, when he came back with the matched silks for Lady Severn.

“You are not working out the Time Study, Miss Severn,” said Mr. Richmond taking a seat beside her. This was his system of helpfulness referred to by Miss Quartz Mica Hanker. He was accustomed to take a seat by the side of some member of his class—he seemed discreetly indifferent to sex in this matter—in order to make suggestions as to the working out of the Time Study. He invariably spoke in so low a tone as to run no chance of disturbing the active members of the class.

“I do not feel much inclined to work at anything just now,” said Amber. “But I am glad to see so many other girls do their best. You have given them confidence, Mr. Richmond.”

“Then I give away what I myself stand most in need of just now,” said Mr. Richmond in a still lower tone.

“Confidence?” said Amber. “Oh, I think you have a very firm hand in these matters, Mr. Richmond. You deal with every problem with the hand of a master.”

“Alas!” he murmured. “Alas! I find myself faltering even now—at this moment. Dear Miss Severn, will you not make the attempt to work out the question which I have enunciated for you—believe me, it was for you only I enunciated it?—a Time Study? Ah, it is with me at all times—that problem. Miss Severn—Amber, will you try to suggest a happy conclusion to the parable which I have just uttered, when I tell you that I am in the position of the man, and that I think of you in the position of the girl?”

Amber scarcely gave a start. She only looked curiously at the man as if she was under the impression that he was enunciating another Time Study for her to work out—as if he was making a well-meant but more than usually unintelligible attempt to help her over a literary stile.