She came to the other end of the mantelpiece, resting her hand upon it.
“I’ve got you here alone,” she said with a laugh, “and I’m going to have it out with you. I’m sorry you don’t like me because I like you very much. But that isn’t the important thing. I don’t want you taking Emy’s side against me. You’ve got great influence over him, and I’m afraid of you.”
Anthony was about to answer. She made a gesture.
“Let me finish,” she said, “then we shall both know what we’re up against. You think I’m spoiling his life, robbing him of his dreams. What were they, put into plain language? To compose a little music; to write a little poetry. He’d never have earned enough to live on. Perhaps before he died he might have composed something out of which a music publisher might have pocketed thousands. He might have written poems that would have brought him fame when it was too late. He’d never have made any real solid success. At that kind of work I couldn’t help him; and, left to himself, he isn’t the sort that ever does get on. At this work of schoolmastering I can help him. He has the talent and I have the business capacity. I’ve no use for dreamers. My father was a dreamer. He discovered things in chemistry that, if he had followed them up, would have made his fortune. They bored him. He was out for discovering a means of changing the atmosphere. I don’t remember the details. You released a gas, or you eliminated a gas, or you introduced a gas. It was all about gases. That’s the only thing I do remember. People instead of breathing in depression and weariness breathed in light-heartedness and strength. It sounds like a fairy story, but if you’d listened to him you’d have been persuaded it was coming, that it was only a question of time, and that when the secret was discovered the whole human race would be feeling like a prisoner who had escaped from a dungeon. That was his dream. And to him it was possible. It was for the sake of that dream that he took the position of science master at St. Aldys at a hundred and sixty a year. It gave him leisure for research. And we children paid the price for it. Both my brothers were clever boys. Given the opportunity, they could have won their way in the world. One of them is a commercial traveller, and the other, as you know, a clerk in your office at eighty pounds a year. If he behaves himself and works hard he may, when he’s fifty, be your managing clerk at three hundred.”
She came closer to him and looked straight into his eyes.
“He’s there,” she said, “inside you—the dreamer. You know it and so do I,” she laughed. “I’ve looked at him too often. You’ve had sense enough to chain him up and throw away the key. Take care he doesn’t escape. If he does he’ll take possession of you, and all your strength and cleverness will be at his service. He’ll ride you without pity. He’ll ride you to death.”
She put her hands upon his shoulders and gave him a little shake.
“I’m talking to you for your good,” she said. “I like you. Don’t ever let him get the mastery over you. If he does, God help you.”
She looked at her watch.
“I must be off,” she said.