“Then you don’t know them—much?” said Mr. Gus, half-satisfied, half-contemptuous. “I couldn’t make you out, to tell the truth. Nobody but an old friend or a connection—or some one who was likely to become a connection”—he added, giving Fairfax a keen sidelong glance, “seemed the right sort of person to be here.”
Fairfax felt uneasy under that look. He blushed, he could scarcely tell why. “I can’t be said to be more than a chance acquaintance,” he said. “It was a lucky chance for me. I have known Markham for a long time. I’ve known him pretty well; but it was a mere chance which brought Sir William to me when they were looking for Markham; and then, by another chance, I was calling when he was taken ill. That’s all. I feel as if I were of a little use, and that makes me hesitate; but I know I have no right to be here.”
“Who’s Markham? The—son, I suppose?”
“Yes, the eldest son. I suppose you know him as Paul. Of course,” said Fairfax, with hesitation, “he ought to be here; but there are some family misunderstandings. He doesn’t know, of course, how serious it is.”
“Wild?” said Mr. Gus, with his little, precise air.
“Oh—I don’t quite know what you mean by wild. Viewy he is, certainly.”
“Viewy? Now I don’t know what you mean by viewy. It is not a word that has got as far as the tropics, I suppose.”
Fairfax paused to give a look of increased interest at the “little gentleman.” He began to be amused, and it was easy—very easy—to lead him from his own affairs into the consideration of some one else’s. “Paul,” he said—“I have got into the way of calling him Paul since I have been here, as they all do—goes wrong by the head, not in any other way. We have been dabbling in—what shall I call it?—socialism, communism, in a way—the whole set of us: and he is more in earnest than the rest; he is giving himself up to it.”
“Socialism—communism!” cried Mr. Gus; he was horrified in his simplicity. “Why that’s revolution, that’s bloodshed and murder!” he cried.
“Oh, no; we’re not of the bloody kind—we’re not red,” said Fairfax, laughing. “It’s the communism that is going to form an ideal society—not fire and flame and barricades.”