“Thank you, sir,” said Edward. “I have to acknowledge that I was not complimentary to your achievement. I was not thinking of it as an achievement, but I, too, have been thinking and I see how cubbishly I failed in my appreciation.”
“Come,” said Reuben, “this is better.”
“As far as it goes, sir, yes. But I am not to go much further. In the shock of seeing the ugliness of that place, I believe that I forgot my manners—more than my manners. I forgot your mastery of steam. I forgot that having turned manufacturer, you became a great manufacturer. I—” he hesitated. “I am not trying to be handsome. I am trying to be just.”
“Just?”
“And, believe me, trying not to be smug. I only plead, sir, that I am old enough to know my own tastes.”
“Are you? I can only look back to myself, Edward, and I am certain that when I was your age, I had no taste for work.”
“A barrister’s is a busy life, sir. That is what I seek to persuade you.”
“And I grant you that it may be. I will grant even that you may have a taste for work, and work of a legal kind. And I have still to ask you if you think it right to put selfish tastes in front of plain duty.”
“Oh, why did you send me to Oxford, sir? Why, if you destined me for the factory, did you first show me the pleasantness of the world?”
“I wished my son to be an educated gentleman. You have seen Richard Needham. He is a product, extreme, but still a product, of the factories and nothing but the factories. He is, as I told you, an able man. But he is coarse. He is a manufacturer who has no thought beyond manufacturing. That is why I sent you to Oxford, where you went knowing that you were heir to Hepplestall’s. You have treated this subject now as if the factory was a surprise that I have sprung upon you.”