“In theory, sir, I suppose I knew what you expected of me. But I had never seen the factory and the factory, in practice, after Oxford, after some education, some glimpse of the humanities, is—”
“I, too,” Reuben warned him, “had my education.”
“Yes,” said Edward. “Yes,” and looked at his father with something like awe. It was true that Reuben was educated—if Edward wanted proof, there was that bookishness of his which bordered at least on scholarliness—and he had stomached the factory; he had stomached it and remained a gentleman! He impressed Edward by his example: he had had the cleverness, in this conversation, to suggest that Edward, young, was in the same case as Reuben, young, had been.
As a fact, their cases were not parallel at all. Circumstances such as Mr. Bantison had pressed Reuben into manufacturing: he had discovered, almost at once, his enthusiasm for steam: he had surrendered himself with the imaginative glamor of the pioneer and if the road was stony, if once he had strayed down the by-path whose name was Phoebe, he had, at the end of it, Dorothy, that bright objective. Edward had none of these. Edward came from Oxford, with his spruce ambition to cut a figure at the bar, and was confronted with the menacing immensity of the great factory, full-grown in naked ugliness. He was without motive, other than the commands of his father, to do outrage on his prejudices.
But it was not for Reuben to point out these differences, nor, it seemed, for Dorothy to intervene with word of such of them as she perceived. She was all with Edward in this struggle, but she was loyal to Reuben and he did her grave injustice if he thought she had made alliance with her son against her husband. She had kept silence and she meant to keep silent to the end—if she could, if, that is, Reuben did not drive too hard: and she had to acknowledge that, so far, he had not used the whip. As for her private sufferings, she hoped she had the courage to keep them private. That was the badge of women.
“Then I can only admire,” Edward was saying. “I can only give you best. I can only say you are a stronger man than I.”
Reuben thought so too, but “Pooh,” he said, “an older man.”
“But you were young when you took up manufacturing. I—I cannot take it up. Let me be candid, sir. I abhor the factory.”
“We spoke just now of tastes. Will it help you to think of the factory as an acquired taste? You are asked to make a trial of it and it is not usual to refuse things that are known to be acquired tastes—olives, for example—without making fair trial of them.”
“No,” said Edward, meeting his father’s eye. “But it is usual to eat olives. It is not usual for a gentleman to turn manufacturer.”