‘Why did you come up?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t talk about these things in letters. You’ll have to tell mother; she might want to go to the funeral.’
‘I don’t see why I should do all your disagreeable work, Dick!’
‘Very well, don’t do it,’ he replied sullenly, throwing down his knife and fork.
A scene of wrangling followed, without violence, but of the kind which is at once a cause and an effect of demoralisation. The old disagreements between them had been in another tone, at all events on Richard’s side, for they had arisen from his earnest disapproval of frivolities and the like. Richard could no longer speak in that way. To lose the power of honest reproof in consequence of a moral lapse is to any man a wide-reaching calamity; to a man of Mutimer’s calibre it meant disaster of which the end could not be foreseen.
Of course Alice yielded; her affection and Richard’s superior force always made it a foregone result that she should do so.
‘And you won’t come and see mother?’ she asked.
‘No. She’s behaving foolishly.’
‘It’s precious dull at home, I can tell you. I can’t go on much longer without friends of some kind. I’ve a good mind to marry Mr. Keene, just for a change.’
Richard started up, with his fist on the table.