“Perhaps—perhaps; we will hope so. But I cannot help being uneasy about him. He reads too much, and I have not yet been able to help it; for he seems miserable, and without any object in life, if I compel him to leave his books.”
“Perhaps we can manage to get over that in a little while.”
“Besides,” Mr. Arnold went on, paying no attention to what Hugh said, “I can get him to take no exercise. He does not even care for riding. I bought him a second pony a month ago, and he has not been twice on its back yet.”
Hugh could not help thinking that to increase the supply was not always the best mode of increasing the demand; and that one who would not ride the first pony, would hardly be likely to ride the second. Mr. Arnold concluded with the words:
“I don’t want to stop the boy’s reading, but I can’t have him a milksop.”
“Will you let me manage him as I please, Mr. Arnold?” Hugh ventured to say.
Mr. Arnold looked full at him, with a very slight but quite manifest expression of surprise; and Hugh was aware that the eyes of the lady, called by the boy Euphra, were likewise fixed upon him penetratingly. As if he were then for the first time struck by the manly development of Hugh’s frame, Mr. Arnold answered:
“I don’t want you to overdo it, either. You cannot make a muscular Christian of him.” (The speaker smiled at his own imagined wit.) “The boy has talents, and I want him to use them.”
“I will do my best for him both ways,” answered Hugh, “if you will trust me. For my part, I think the only way is to make the operation of the intellectual tendency on the one side, reveal to the boy himself his deficiency on the other. This once done, all will be well.”
As he said this, Hugh caught sight of a cloudy, inscrutable dissatisfaction slightly contracting the eyebrows of the lady. Mr. Arnold, however, seemed not to be altogether displeased.