“Honestly,” said Mr Gresham, “I don’t quite know. Good things are not necessarily the most agreeable, are they? Rather the other way sometimes. Oh, yes, Michael’s very good, a model of steadiness and industry and all the rest of it, but not distinguished by suavity and charm of manner. He lives so out of things, you see.”
“Is he a misanthrope, then?” asked Miss Raynsworth, her curiosity increasing.
Mr Gresham hesitated. He was a very truthful man, and prided himself intellectually as well as morally on his accuracy. And Philippa’s question revived some old memories. Michael a misanthrope! Who would ever have associated such a word with the bright-faced schoolboy of not so very many years back, or the young fellow going up to college with everything this world can give him in the present and the future? And then the change; the shock of finding on his death that the father he had so honoured had for years deceived him and his too confiding mother, the clouded name, the broken-hearted widow, who had no strength to rally even for her boy’s sake; the transference to Bernard, the son of a younger brother, of the inheritance which, but for his father’s misdoings, would at least in some part have been his! No, by nature assuredly Michael was no misanthrope, but if circumstances had conspired to make him one, would it have been a thing to wonder at?
But all this the elder cousin had no wish to explain to the girl beside him. Still he was loyal, and his face had grown graver as at last he turned to reply:
“No,” he said, “it wouldn’t be fair to call him that. He’s had—he’s had troubles enough to sour him, and he’s not soured. And—oh, well, to give him his due, he has been a bit of a hero in his time.”
Philippa looked up quickly. She had never liked Mr Gresham so much as at this moment. And some instinct told him so.
“I cannot tell you all about it,” he said. “He would not wish it, even though you do not know him. But I can give you some idea of it. He gave up great advantages for himself for the sake of clearing the name of one whom he had little reason to sacrifice himself for. I think it was quixotry, and so do many others, except—well, yes, there was another element in it, the peace of mind of one very dear to him. He was very young; I doubt if he realised the grind of a life he was bringing upon himself.”
“Has he to work so hard, then?” the girl inquired. “If so, I scarcely see that he can be reproached with keeping ‘out of things,’ as you say he does.”
There was a touch of reproach in her tone now, which her companion did not approve of.
“Oh, as to that,” he said, airily, “it’s a matter of temperament, and personal idiosyncrasy. Many very busy men find time to mix in society. But Michael’s a bear; there are only two individuals in the world that I would care to assert that he loves—individuals, not people, for one is a dog.”