"Oh, then, you did know of it?" she said, archly.
Meredith Vyner bit his lip.
"Sixty was the sum Mama gave, at any rate, because Rose, who was present, told me so."
"Kind, generous creature!" ejaculated Vyner. "She must have added the other ten from her own purse. Violet, you have guessed aright, but keep the secret, unless you wish me to withhold even my underhand charity from your wretched sister."
Violet promised to do so; but how great was her scorn of her mother's hypocrisy, when she thus found her suspicions verified! From her knowledge of her father and mother, she had at once guessed the real state of the case, and confusedly, but strongly, suspected the motive of the latter.
This was the way in which their mutual hatred was nourished. Violet was not a dupe, and her mother saw that she was not.
On Cecil, the influence of this gift was fatal.
"This comes most fortunately," he said; "for not only do I now begin to see that our income is barely sufficient to meet our scanty expenditure, but the more I advance in my 'Nero,' the more am I impressed with the necessity for not hurrying it. All great works demand time and labour. Were I to hurry the execution I should spoil it, and too much depends upon success for me to be precipitate."
He was sincere in saying so; he was his own dupe in asserting that what he most needed was ample leisure in which to elaborate his conception. He caught at the excuse offered to his idleness, and like all men, covered his weakness in the imposing folds of an aphorism. The brain is singularly fertile in inventing plausible reasons to excuse weaknesses.
Labour is a sublime necessity: it is beneficence under a rude aspect. But although so beneficent to man, it is radically antipathetic to his nature. All men are constrained to work. Poverty or ambition are the invariable taskmasters, and it is only by dint of the strong stimulus of want, or the stronger dictates of indomitable will, that human nature, vagabond as are its tendencies, can be made to persevere in the tasks set before it.