"Perhaps: I will see. I may have been unjust to you, Robert: you are different from most men, and not easy to understand: you like to let part of you pass for the whole. Whether you are so easy to rule as you pretend to be, I am not sure yet. Well, there is time to find out. If you live by your professions, well and good. Kiss me, dear; good-night."
Since Jane has panned out in this unexpected way, I wish I could tell her the Secret: she might give me some points. But that is impossible—unthinkable, as they say at Concord. Clarice would never forgive me: that would be bad, but not the worst. It would be disloyal to her—distinctly so. That I've never been yet, and I'm too old to begin now. There may be cases in which the end justifies the means, but this is not one of them. No: I must dree this weird (if that is the expression), and hoe this row, all by myself. If I had been bred in the east, I should be tempted to say it was a contumelious responsibility. The next time you want to get into difficulties with a lady, James Hartman, you must do it on some other premises than mine.
XXII.
AN ORDEAL.
Next morning I was nosing about in the library, pretending to be looking for a book, when Clarice came to me and said, "I don't think what you want is here. Leave business this afternoon, and take me to the Park."
If she were to say, "Leave business this year, and take me to Europe, or to Madagascar," I should do it: she would have to arrange the matter with Mabel, but that she could do without difficulty, I have not the least doubt. It would be a loss to Water Street, and my departure would be felt in business circles generally; but they would have to stand it as they might. In this case, however, no heavy sacrifice was involved: for a few hours, or days, or weeks, Pipeline, as Mabel says, can conduct the old stand well enough. What it needs is the feeling that a master mind presides over its destinies, though from such a distance as Newport or the Wayback woods.
We agreed on an hour—that is, she told me to be at the door at two—and I went down town, feeling relieved. It is much better for Clarice to take the responsibility of opening communications, and I wish she would conduct the whole interview, like a major-general with his aid-de-camp or a master plumber sending out his apprentices to mend the pipes—leaving me only to take notes of instructions. But that is too much to expect. It is a delicate task before me, and my talents for such (according to the ladies), are not so eminent that I should be anxious to overwork them. I can manage a man, and some women perhaps; but to catechize and cross-examine her on a subject as to which pride, and honor, and modesty lock a girl's lips—I don't see how I can do it, even with her consent. I would rather smoke my pipe through a powder mill than hurt you, my poor Princess: my clumsy fingers were never made to play about your heartstrings.
I dropped in at Trinity on my way, and put up a prayer; it was that she might make it easy for herself, and for me, though that is a minor matter—keep the game in her own hands, and tell enough to serve her ambassador's need, without his questioning.