"I have thought it all over many a time," said Percivale; "and I suppose it comes in part from inability to understand the worth of our calling, and in part from the difficulty of knowing where to put us."
"I suspect," I said, "one thing is that so many of them are content to be received as merely painters, or whatever they may be by profession. Many, you have told me, for instance, accept invitations which do not include their wives."
"They often go to parties, of course, where there are no ladies," said
Roger.
"That is not what I mean," I replied. "They go to dinner-parties where there are ladies, and evening parties, too, without their wives."
"Whoever does that," said Percivale, "has at least no right to complain that he is regarded as a Bohemian; for in accepting such invitations, he accepts insult, and himself insults his wife."
Nothing irritated my bear so much as to be asked to dinner without me. He would not even offer the shadow of a reason for declining the invitation. "For," he would say, "if I give the real reason, namely, that I do not choose to go where my wife is excluded, they will set it down to her jealous ambition of entering a sphere beyond her reach; I will not give a false reason, and indeed have no objection to their seeing that I am offended; therefore, I assign none. If they have any chivalry in them, they may find out my reason readily enough."
I don't think I ever displeased him so much as once when I entreated him to accept an invitation to dine with the Earl of H——. The fact was, I had been fancying it my duty to persuade him to get over his offence at the omission of my name, for the sake of the advantage it would be to him in his profession. I laid it before him as gently and coaxingly as I could, representing how expenses increased, and how the children would be requiring education by and by,—reminding him that the reputation of more than one of the most popular painters had been brought about in some measure by their social qualities and the friendships they made.
"Is it likely your children will be ladies and gentlemen," he said, "if you prevail on their father to play the part of a sneaking parasite?"
I was frightened. He had never spoken to me in such a tone, but I saw too well how deeply he was hurt to take offence at his roughness. I could only beg him to forgive me, and promise never to say such a word again, assuring him that I believed as strongly as himself that the best heritage of children was their father's honor.
Free from any such clogs as the possession of a wife encumbers a husband withal, Roger could of course accept what invitations his connection with an old and honorable family procured him. One evening he came in late from a dinner at Lady Bernard's.