“He really does look very old,” he thought now, looking at the thin legs, the bones in the neck, the lines on the forehead of the poor gentleman, “and after all it can’t be pleasant to lose Katherine.”
“If you’d only,” he went on in a milder voice, “give me a chance. Katherine’s much too fond of all of you to give you up simply because she’s married. She isn’t that sort at all. You knew that she’d marry some day. All the trouble has come because you don’t like me. But have you ever tried to? I’m the sort of man that you’ve got to like if you’re to see the best of me. I know that’s my fault, but everyone has to have allowances made for them.”
Philip paused. There was a most deadly stillness in the room. Philip felt that even the calf-bound Thackeray and the calf-bound Waverley novels behind the glass screens in the large book-case near the door were listening with all their covers.
Not a movement came from the old man. Philip felt as though he were addressing the whole house—
He went on. “When you were young you wanted to go on with your generation just as we do now. You believed that there was a splendid time coming, and that none of the times that had ever been would be so fine as the new one. You didn’t want to think the same as your grandfather and be tied to the same things. Can’t you remember? Can’t you remember? Don’t you see that it’s just the same for us?”
Still no movement, no sound, no quiver of a shadow in the Mirror.
“I’ll be good to her, I swear to you, I don’t want to do anyone any harm. And after all, what have I done? I was rude one Sunday night, Henry drank too much once, I don’t always go to church, I don’t like the same books—but what’s all that? isn’t everyone different, and isn’t it a good thing that they are?”
He bent forward—“I know that you can do a lot with them all. Just persuade them to help, and be agreeable about it. That’s all that’s wanted—just for everyone to be agreeable. It’s such a simple thing, really.”
He had touched Mr. Trenchard’s knee. With that touch the whole room seemed to leap into hostile activity. He had, quite definitely, the impression of having with one step plunged into a country that bristled with foes behind every bush and tree. The warmth of the old man’s knees seemed to fling him off and cast him out.
Old Mr. Trenchard raised his head with a fierce, furious gesture like the action of a snake striking.