“Is it you, my lady?” he cried. His face beamed over with a smile of welcome, but showed no surprise or alarm at the appearance of such an inquisitor. He drew forth a rough wooden seat without any back, and placed it in the centre of the vacant space.
“I am very glad to see you in my poor place,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Lady Markham. She glanced round her with a little perturbation. She did not know how to begin. “Mr. Spears!” she said, faltering a little, “I was very glad to see you in my house.”
“Were you, my lady?” He stood before her with a good-humoured smile upon his face, but slightly shook his head. “Never mind, you were as kind as if you had been glad to see me, and that says more. But your husband upbraided me for coming to his house in his absence, which you know was your son’s fault, and not mine.”
“It is of my son I want to speak to you,” said Lady Markham, seizing this easy means of introducing her subject. “Mr. Spears, you know something of what he is to me—my eldest boy, the one who should be the prop of the family: to whom his brothers and sisters will look hereafter as the head of the family.”
“Ay, that’s just it,” said the revolutionary. “Why should they look to him? What is there so creditable in being the eldest son? It was no thanks to him. He was not born first for any merit of his. Far better to teach them to depend on themselves—to give them their just share—to make no eldest sons.”
“As if that were possible,” Lady Markham said, with a soft smile at this theoretical folly. “One must be the eldest, whatever you say; and if any harm were to happen to us,” she added, after a pause, raising her beautiful head, “I have no fear that Paul would give up his position then. If we were to become poor, to lose all we have—such things have happened, Mr. Spears—my boy would not find it hard to remember to take up his duties as the eldest son!”
“Ah!” said Spears in involuntary sympathy. Then he added with again the same good-humoured smile, “There now, that is how you get the better of us, you aristocrats. You are terribly cunning in argument, my lady. You get over us by a suggestion of generosity when we are talking of justice. The thing will never happen, of course—not in our day, more’s the pity—your money and your land will never be taken from you.”
“Do you think that is a pity, Mr. Spears?”
“Well, yes,” he said, laughing, “from our point of view; but it will never happen, not in our time. And even if it did happen, don’t you think it would be far better to live each man for himself, and not a whole family casting themselves on the shoulders of your son Paul?”