“So,” he reflected, “it's right for every reason, social, religious, and convenient, to inflict one's society where it's not desired. There are obviously advantages about the married state; charming to feel respectable while you're acting in a way that in any other walk of life would bring on you contempt. If old Halidome showed that he was tired of me, and I continued to visit him, he'd think me a bit of a cad; but if his wife were to tell him she couldn't stand him, he'd still consider himself a perfect gentleman if he persisted in giving her the burden of his society; and he has the cheek to bring religion into it—a religion that says, 'Do unto others!'.rdquo;
But in this he was unjust to Halidome, forgetting how impossible it was for him to believe that a woman could not stand him. He reached his rooms, and, the more freely to enjoy the clear lamplight, the soft, gusty breeze, and waning turmoil of the streets, waited a moment before entering.
“I wonder,” thought he, “if I shall turn out a cad when I marry, like that chap in the play. It's natural. We all want our money's worth, our pound of flesh! Pity we use such fine words—'Society, Religion, Morality.' Humbug!”
He went in, and, throwing his window open, remained there a long time, his figure outlined against the lighted room for the benefit of the dark square below, his hands in his pockets, his head down, a reflective frown about his eyes. A half-intoxicated old ruffian, a policeman, and a man in a straw hat had stopped below, and were holding a palaver.
“Yus,” the old ruffian said, “I'm a rackety old blank; but what I say is, if we wus all alike, this would n't be a world!”
They went their way, and before the listener's eyes there rose Antonia's face, with its unruffled brow; Halidome's, all health and dignity; the forehead of the goggle-eyed man, with its line of hair parted in the centre, and brushed across. A light seemed to illumine the plane of their existence, as the electric lamp with the green shade had illumined the pages of the Matthew Arnold; serene before Shelton's vision lay that Elysium, untouched by passion or extremes of any kind, autocratic; complacent, possessive, and well-kept as any Midland landscape. Healthy, wealthy, wise! No room but for perfection, self-preservation, the survival of the fittest! “The part of the good citizen,” he thought: “no, if we were all alike, this would n't be a world!”
CHAPTER VI
MARRIAGE SETTLEMENT
“My dear Richard” (wrote Shelton's uncle the next day), “I shall be glad to see you at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon upon the question of your marriage settlement....” At that hour accordingly Shelton made his way to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where in fat black letters the names “Paramor and Herring (Commissioners for Oaths)” were written on the wall of a stone entrance. He ascended the solid steps with nervousness, and by a small red-haired boy was introduced to a back room on the first floor. Here, seated at a table in the very centre, as if he thereby better controlled his universe, a pug-featured gentleman, without a beard, was writing. He paused. “Ow, Mr. Richard!” he said; “glad to see you, sir. Take a chair. Your uncle will be disengaged in 'arf a minute”; and in the tone of his allusion to his employer was the satirical approval that comes with long and faithful service. “He will do everything himself,” he went on, screwing up his sly, greenish, honest eyes, “and he 's not a young man.”