‘Eh! What!’ the doctor cried sharply. ‘Subordinate your principles to your personal interests! Oh, pray don’t mistake me so utterly as that! Not at all, not at all, my dear Le Breton. I don’t mean that for the shadow of a second. What I mean is rather this,’ and here the doctor cleared his throat and pulled round his white tie a second time, ‘that a schoolmaster, considering attentively what is best for his pupils, mark you—we all exist for our pupils, you know, my dear fellow, don’t we?—a schoolmaster should avoid such action as may give any unnecessary scandal, you see, or seem to clash with the ordinary opinion of the pupils’ parents. Of course, if your views are fully formed, and are of a mildly Liberal complexion (put it so, I beg of you, and don’t use that distressful word Radical), I wouldn’t for the world have you act contrary to them. But I wouldn’t have you obtrude them too ostentatiously—for your own sake, Le Breton, for your own sake, I assure you. Remember, you’re a very young man yet: you have plenty of time before you to modify your opinions in: as you go on, you’ll modify them—moderate them—bring them into harmony with the average opinions of ordinary parents. Don’t commit yourself at present—that’s all I would say to you—don’t commit yourself at present. When you’re as old as I am, my dear fellow, you’ll see through all these youthful extravagances.’
‘And as to the church, Mr. Le Breton,’ said Mrs. Greatrex, with bland suggestiveness from the ottoman, ‘of course, we regard the present very unsatisfactory arrangement as only temporary. The doctor hopes in time to get a chapel built, which is much nicer for the boys, and also more convenient for the masters and their families—they all have seats, of course, in the chancel. At Charlton College, where the doctor was an assistant for some years, before we came to Pilbury, there was one of the under-masters, a young man of very good family, who took such an interest in the place that he not only contributed a hundred pounds out of his own pocket towards building a chapel, but also got ever so many of his wealthy friends elsewhere to subscribe, first to that, and then to the organ and stained-glass window. We’ve got up a small building fund here ourselves already, of which the doctor’s treasurer, and we hope before many years to have a really nice chapel, with good music and service well done—the kind of thing that’ll be of use to the school, and have an excellent moral effect upon the boys in the way of religious training.’
‘No doubt,’ Ernest answered evasively, ‘you’ll soon manage to raise the money in such a place as Pilbury.’
‘No doubt,’ the doctor replied, looking at him with a searching glance, and evidently harbouring an uncomfortable suspicion, already, that this young man had not got the moral and religious welfare of the boys quite so deeply at heart as was desirable in a model junior assistant master. ‘Well, well, we shall see you at school to-morrow morning, Le Breton: till then I hope you’ll find yourselves quite comfortable in your new lodgings.’
Ernest went back from this visit of ceremony with a doubtful heart, and left Dr. and Mrs. Greatrex alone to discuss their new acquisition.
‘Well, Maria,’ said the doctor, in a dubious tone of voice, as soon as Ernest was fairly out of hearing, ‘what do you think of him?’
‘Think!’ answered Mrs. Greatrex, energetically. ‘Why, I don’t think at all. I feel sure he’ll never, never, never make a schoolmaster!’
‘I’m afraid not,’ the doctor responded, pensively. ‘I’m afraid not, Maria. He’s got ideas of his own, I regret to say; and, what’s worse, they’re not the right ones.’
‘Oh, he’ll never do,’ Mrs. Greatrex continued, scornfully. ‘Nothing at all professional about him in any way. No interest or enthusiasm in the matter of the chapel; not a spark of responsiveness even about the stained-glass window; hardly a trace of moral or religious earnestness, of care for the welfare and happiness of the dear boys. He wouldn’t in the least impress intending parents—or, rather, I feel sure he’d impress them most unfavourably. The best thing we can do, now we’ve got him, is to play off his name on relations in society, but to keep the young man himself as far as possible in the background. I confess he’s a disappointment—a very great and distressing disappointment.’
‘He is, he is certainly,’ the doctor acquiesced, with a sigh of regretfulness. ‘I’m afraid we shall never be able to make much of him. But we must do our best—for his own sake, and the sake of the boys and parents, it’s our duty, Maria, to do our best with him.’