Keene was at no loss to recall inoffensive phrases; in another long speech, full of cajolery sufficiently artful for the occasion, he represented himself as having merely protested against misrepresentations obviously sharpened by malice.
‘It is just possible that I made some reference to her character,’ he admitted, speaking more slowly, and as if desirous that no word should escape his hearer; ‘but it did not occur to me to guard against misunderstandings of the word. I might have remembered that it has such different meanings on the lips of educated and of uneducated men. You, of course, would never have missed my thoughts.’
‘If I might suggest,’ he added, when Mutimer kept silence, I think, if you condescend to notice the letter at all, you should reply only in the most general terms. Who is this man Dabbs, I wonder, who has the impudence to write to you in this way?’
‘Oh, one of the Hoxton Socialists, I suppose,’ Mutimer answered carelessly. ‘I remember the name.’
‘A gross impertinence! By no means encourage them in thinking you owe explanations. Your position doesn’t allow anything of the kind.’
‘All right,’ said Richard, his ill-humour gone; ‘I’ll see to it.’
He was not able, after all, to catch the early train by which he had meant to take his brother to Wanley. He did not like to leave without some kind of good-bye to his mother, and Alice said that the old woman would not be ready to go before eleven o’clock. After half an hour of restlessness he sat down to answer Daniel’s letter. Keene’s flattery had not been without its fruit. From anger which had in it an element of apprehension he passed to an arrogant self-confidence which character and circumstances were conspiring to make his habitual mood. It was a gross impertinence in Daniel to address him thus. What was the use of wealth if it did not exempt one from the petty laws binding on miserable hand to mouth toilers! He would have done with Emma Vine; his time was of too much value to the world to be consumed in wranglings about a work-girl. What if here and there someone believed the calumny? Would it do Emma any harm? That was most unlikely. On the whole, the misunderstanding was useful; let it take its course. Men with large aims cannot afford to be scrupulous in small details. Was not New Wanley a sufficient balance against a piece of injustice, which, after all, was only one of words?
He wrote:
‘DEAR SIR,—I have received your letter, but it is impossible for me to spend time in refuting idle stories. What’s more, I cannot see that my private concerns are a fit subject for discussion at a public meeting, as I understand they have been made. You are at liberty to read this note when and where you please, and in that intention let me add that the cause of Socialism will not be advanced by attacks on the character of those most earnestly devoted to it. I remain, yours truly,
‘RICHARD MUTIMER.’