“I, lad? What have I ever done but cherish you as if you were my own! I have been as proud of you—! All your fine ways that I’ve jibed about have been a pleasure to me all the time. It went to my heart to think that you, the finest aristocrat of all the lot, were following old Spears for love of a principle. I said to myself, abuse them as we like, there’s stuff in these old races—there’s something in that blue blood. I don’t deny it before you two, that may laugh at me as you please. I that have just been telling all those lads that it’s the scum that comes uppermost (and believe it too). I that have sworn an eternal war against the principle of unequal rank and accumulation of property—”
Spears paused. There was nothing ludicrous to him in the idea of this eternal war, waged by a nameless stump orator against all the kingdoms of the world and the power of them. He was too much in earnest to be conscious of any absurdity. He was as serious in his crusade as if he had been a conqueror with life and death in his hands, and his voice trembled with the reality of this confession which he was going to make.
“Well!” he said, “I, of whom you know all this as well as I do myself, I’ve been proud of your birth and your breeding, Paul, because it was all the grander of you to forget them for the cause. I’ve dwelt on these things in my mind. I’ve said, there’s the flower of them all, and he’s following after me! Look here! you’re not going to take it so dreadfully amiss if, after not hearing a word from you, after not knowing what you were going to do, seeing you suddenly opposite to me with your most aggravating look (and you can put on an aggravating look when you like, you know you can, and drive me wild,” Spears said with a deprecating, tender smile, putting his hand, caressingly, on the back of Paul’s chair)—“if I let out a bitter word, a lash of ill-temper against my will, you are not going to make that a quarrel between you and me.”
The man’s large mobile features were working, his eyes shining out under their heavy brows. The generous soul in him was moved to its depth. He had, being “wild,” as he said, with sudden passion, accused Paul of having yielded to the seductions of his new rank—but in his heart he did not believe the accusation he had made. He trusted his young disciple with all the doting confidence of a woman. Of a woman! his daughter Janet, though she was a woman, and a young one, had no such enthusiasm of trust in her being. She would have scorned his weakness had she been by—very differently would Janet have dealt with a hesitating lover. But the demagogue had enthroned in his soul an ideal to which, perhaps, his very tenderest affections, the deepest sentiments he was capable of, had clung. He had fallen for the moment into that madness which works in the brain when we are wroth with those we love. And he did not know now how to make sufficient amends for it, how to open wide enough that window into his heart which showed the quivering and longing within. But he had said for the moment all he could say.
And for a time there was silence in the little room. Fairfax, who understood him, turned away, and began to stare at a rude-coloured print on the wall in order to leave the others alone. He would himself have held out his hand before half this self-revelation had been made, and perhaps Spears would have but lightly appreciated that naïve response. But Paul was by no means ready to yield. He kept silence for what seemed to the interested spectator ten minutes at least. Then he said, slowly—
“I think it would be wise to inquire into the facts of the case before permitting yourself to use such language, Spears—even if you had not roused your rabble against me.”
He said these strident words in the most forcible way, making the r’s roll.
“Rabble?” Spears repeated, with a tone of dismay; but his patience was not exhausted, nor his penitence. “I know,” he said, “it was wrong. I don’t excuse myself. I behaved like a fool, and it costs a man like me something to say that. Paul—come! why should we quarrel? Let bygones be bygones. They should have torn me to pieces before they had laid a finger on you.”
“A good many of them would have smarted for it if they had laid a finger on me,” said Paul. “That I promise you.”
Spears laughed; his mind was relieved. He gave his vigorous person a shake and was himself again.