‘What does it matter about details? I use the word croquet as a symbol—or my mother requires my attendance upon her somewhere. Then the rest of the world turn round and call me idle! Self-denial is a disagreeable quality, Cara. Let us avoid it. At the best it is only extracting merit out of necessity, for nobody denies himself except when he’s obliged to do so.’
‘Sybarite!’ said Mrs. Meredith, shaking her head at her son; and then she turned to talk to Mr. Beresford, and the four young people were left to themselves.
‘Sit down, Roger,’ said Cara; ‘why should you stand up there as if you were defying the world. You are all quite wrong. It is not self-denial to do what you are forced to do. When you give up anything of your own free will because it is right, then perhaps——’
‘Only perhaps, Cara? Don’t take away the little satisfaction one has in doing a thing that is disagreeable. Look here,’ said Edward, suddenly seating himself in the vacant place by her which Roger had neglected to take, ‘going to India is very disagreeable to me. I think I could do just as well at home. My feeling is all against it; I might, perhaps, make more money there, but money is not everything. There is no necessity that I can see, one way or another—but my mother wishes it—that is to say, my mother thinks my father would like it——’
Roger looked quickly at Mrs. Meredith. Is there a father? he said to himself, with a mental whistle of astonishment, to which he dared not give audible utterance. ‘Whew!’ and the astute young man immediately leaped to the conviction that here was something unquestionably wrong.
‘I thought—it was Oswald—whom Mr. Meredith wanted——’
Oswald laughed. ‘Have you not found out, Cara, that Oswald is an individual?’ he said. ‘If Ned likes to be knocked about the world according to other people’s fancies, that is his affair. I don’t. Yes, it was Oswald that was wanted; but I never was a man for competitive examinations, my ideas don’t run in that channel, so I dropped my mantle upon my brother. Oh, he will have compensation; he will be a Member of Council while I am only a briefless barrister. He will move princes about like chessmen while I have no influence with anyone but a stray editor. Ned will be the great man of the family—what, you don’t approve of me! You would rather Ned stayed at home than I?’
Cara had given him a very young girl’s most emphatic sign of disapproval. She turned her shoulder upon him, and averted her head. Poor Roger looked on with a burning heart, seeing the two brothers, one on each side of her, contending, as it seemed, for her approbation. The fact that there were two seemed to shut him out more and more. He was indignant, disappointed, wounded. He said to himself in his heart every ill thing he could think of against this strange house. First, the Sunday dinner-party—even though he had himself condoned it by becoming one of the guests; second, the work left on the table, which he felt sure the mistress of the house was quite capable of taking up, although restrained by his presence from actually doing so. Then the separation of the family—the father in India, the mother here. What a house for Cara to be thrown into! What an example for her! A woman who lived apart from her husband and yet asked people to dinner could not be a proper woman to have the charge of Cara. Of course, she was just the sort of person to encourage a girl in flirting, to put evil into her head. These were the thoughts that kept burning and scorching the brain of poor Roger as he stood before the fire in this strange house, the people on either side of him so much engaged with each other, and he so completely left out. Why did he come here to make himself unhappy? Why build such foolish hopes upon this day? His aunt at Notting Hill would have been a much better companion, a great deal kinder, and she would be wondering now what had become of him, or thinking, perhaps, that he was enjoying himself! Strange enjoyment! He made a distinct pause in his thoughts to realise her, but he made no sort of movement to go away, which was the only thing he could do to relieve her anxiety. She would wonder if he meant to come back; if he was going to stay all night; or if he had gone off straight from his friend’s house to catch the train. There were not all the usual trains on Sunday nights, and this would perplex her, poor lady, still more. All this passed through his mind, and he was very uncomfortable. Yet he made no attempt to go away.
‘Roger,’ said Cara, getting up suddenly, for she felt herself embarrassed on her side, and was glad of a way of escape, ‘are you going back to the College to-night?’
Her question chimed in with his thoughts, but he did not reply in the way that would have seemed most in keeping with those thoughts. ‘It does not matter,’ he said; ‘I think I shall go down by the first train to-morrow.’ As soon as he felt her soft eyes upon him the foolish young fellow thought that all must go well.