“No, Alexina,” said Charlotte hastily; “I didn’t. Or I ought not to have,” she added honestly. “I’ve never set myself against Georges in things concerning Willy since we came down here. We talked it out then, Georges and I. It’s been hard to see Willy fighting things; he was born imperious, but he’s used to battling now. I see what Georges meant. It’s better for people to learn how to battle. If I had ever been taught—”
The sun was slanting in under the old, wild orange tree on to the gallery. Again the three sat silent. Then out of the silence the Captain spoke. He was an old man who had laid down the burden of labour to lift and carry the heavier load of inaction in silence, as he had carried the other. His tone was impersonal.
“There was a giant wrestler, one Antæus of Lybia, if I remember my classics, Alexina. King used to lie on the rug when you both were children and read you about him. So many times as this Antæus was brought to earth, he arose renewed, if I recall. The boy must wrestle with his own fate.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On entering Uncle Austen’s house, self-consciousness and constraint closed in like bars across the door of spontaneity. Alexina had arrived the night before and they were at breakfast. Uncle Austen was facetiously affable, and his sportive sallies, not being natural with him, embarrassed his audience. There is something almost pitiable in the sight of middle-age grown playful.
Emily, Uncle Austen’s wife—embarrassing realization in itself—looked in her plate constrainedly, so that Alexina, if only that his further playfulness might be prevented, threw herself into the conversation and chattered volubly, but in vain, for Uncle Austen found chance to reply.
There was complacency in his facetiousness, too. He had married him a wife, and the pride of the thing coming to him this late made him a little absurd, and yet, Alexina reflected, he was a man of big ability and varied interests, prominent in whatever large enterprises the city boasted, banks, railroads, bridges; a power in the Republican party of his state, his name standing for respectability, wealth, and conservatism.
“I’m taking pretty good care of your old friend Emily, Alexina?” Uncle Austen was demanding playfully, as he arose from the table; “she’s standing transplanting pretty well, eh?”