‘Why was Lucian Damerel so foolish as to go off in one direction while his wife went in another with the man she originally meant to marry?’ inquired Lady Firmanence. ‘Come now, Saxonstowe, would you have done that?’
‘No,’ he said hesitatingly, ‘I don’t think I should; but then, you see, Damerel looks at things differently. I don’t think he would ever give the foolishness of it a thought, and he would certainly think no evil—he’s as guileless as a child.’
‘Well,’ remarked Lady Firmanence, ‘I don’t admire him any the more for that. I’m a bit out of love with grown-up children. If Lucian Damerel marries a wife he should take care of her. Why, she was three weeks on Darlington’s yacht, and three weeks at his place in Scotland (of course there were lots of other people there too, but even then it was foolish), and he was with her at two or three country houses in Northumberland later on—I met them at one myself.’
‘Lucian and his wife,’ said Saxonstowe, ‘are very fond of having their own way.’
Lady Firmanence looked at her nephew out of her eye-corners.
‘Oh!’ she said, with a caustic irony, ‘you think so, do you? Well, you know, young people who like to have their own way generally come to grief. To my mind, your new friends seem to be qualifying for trouble.’
Saxonstowe studied the pattern of the carpet and traced bits of it out with his stick.
‘Do you think men like Damerel have the power of reckoning things up?’ he said, suddenly looking at his aunt with a quick, appealing glance. ‘I don’t quite understand these things, but he always seems to me to be a bit impatient of anything that has to do with everyday life, and yet he’s keen enough about it in one way. He’s a real good chap, you know—kindly natured and open-hearted and all that. You soon find that in him. And I don’t believe he ever had a wrong thought of anybody—he’s a sort of confiding trust in other people that’s a bit amusing, even to me, and I haven’t seen such an awful lot of the world. But——’ He came to a sudden pause and shook his head. Lady Firmanence laughed.
‘Yes, but,’ she repeated. ‘That “but” makes all the difference. But this is Lucian Damerel—he is a child who sits in a gaily caparisoned, comfortably appointed boat which has been launched on a wide river that runs through a mighty valley. He has neither sail nor rudder, and he is so intent on the beauty of the scenery through which he is swept that he does not recognise their necessity. His eyes are fixed on the rose-flushed peak of a far-off mountain, the glitter of the sunshine on a dancing wave, or on the basket of provisions which thoughtful hands have put in the boat. It may be that the boat will glide to its destination in safety, and land him on the edge of a field of velvety grass wherein he can lie down in peace to dream as long as he pleases. But it also may be that it will run on a rock in mid-stream and knock his fool’s paradise into a cocked hat—and what’s going to happen then?’ asked Lady Firmanence.
‘Lots of things might happen,’ said Saxonstowe, smiling triumphantly at the thought of beating his clever relative at her own game. ‘He might be able to swim, for example. He might right the boat, get into it again, and learn by experience that one shouldn’t go fooling about without a rudder. Some other chap might come along and give him a hand. Or the river might be so shallow that he could walk ashore with no more discomfort than he would get from wet feet.’