“Oh, do you think there’s anything in that?” said Rosamond. “I don’t: in the first place, if you must speak for yourself, you’re a prejudiced witness, that’s what they say. And again, you know a man’s father—or a woman’s father either, for that matter—does always believe other people sooner than you. It has something to do with the constitution of human nature, I suppose,” she added with philosophical calm. “And then, perhaps, if you will allow me to say it, Eddy might know more than you.”
“About myself?” said Archie.
“About other people. Eddy knows a great deal about some kinds of life. I don’t say it is the best kinds. He knows the ways of a bad set. So that if it was anything wrong, he might be able to throw a light—It is a pity, but that is the turn he has taken,” said Rosamond. “He seems to find scamps more amusing than others. Perhaps they are, for anything I know. I have thought myself, that if you didn’t mind about being respectable and that sort of thing, which of course a girl must mind, that it might be perhaps more amusing. One never knows. Certainly society men are not amusing at all.”
“I should have thought,” said Archie, “you would have liked them best.”
“No,” said Rosamond dubiously, “the worst is, people are so hideously like each other. That’s why one longs after what’s disreputable or—anything out of the way. One hopes to light upon a new species somewhere. So far as I can see, however,” she added, “Eddy’s people are just as dull as the rest.”
Archie was quite unable to keep up the ball of this conversation. It flustered and made him uncomfortable. He was very certain that whatever could be said for himself (and he did not think that much could be said for him), nobody would venture to assert that he was amusing.
“I should have thought,” he said hesitating, “that a fellow you could trust to, that was of the kind that would never fail you whatever you wanted, and thought more of you a great deal than of himself, however awkward he might be, or uncouth, or that—”
“Oh,” said Rosamond, “if it’s moral qualities you are thinking of, the best thing perhaps to do would be to pick up the nearest curate and make a model of him.” Which perplexed Archie more and more: for though he knew little of curates, he had been brought up with a wholesome respect for the minister, yet did not perhaps think that dignitary exactly the person “to please a damsel’s eye.” He expressed the difficulty he had in carrying on the conversation by a hesitating and puzzled “O-oh!” but said little more. And those young persons walked the rest of the way to Rosmore in partial silence, broken by an occasional monologue from Rosamond, who did not dislike a good listener. And there is no doubt that Archie was admirable in this way.
The rest of the party were less happy, for it must be said, that though the conversation did not flourish, there was to Archie, and possibly also, more or less sympathetically, to Rosamond, a sort of vague pleasure in moving along by the side of a person so interesting, which, though quite vague, was wonderfully seductive, and made the woodland roads into enchanted ways, and gave every moment wings. The lad found himself in a charmed atmosphere when he was by her side. During the tremendous internal conflict through which he had passed, he had thought of Rosamond, not according to her own formula, as amusing, but as the opposite extreme to that lowest kind of existence, the highest point of interest, variety and stimulation, which life contained. And now he had stepped at once from the depths to the height. He did not mind what it was she was saying, nor even that he could not reply to her. As he walked along by her side, Archie was buoyed up as by heavenly airs. He trod not on common earth, but on something elastic and inspiring that made every step light. And though Rosamond would have been greatly surprised had she been accused of any such feeling for Archie, yet perhaps the sympathy of the exquisite elation in his being affected her more than she knew. But, as has been said, the rest of the party were less happy. Marion sat with her back to the horses, partly from choice, in order to have the others more at her mercy, and partly in supposed deference to Rowland, who liked to have his face turned in the direction in which he was going like many other energetic persons. She surveyed her father and his wife as from an eminence, commanding every look and movement. There is not a better point of vantage than the front seat of a carriage when you mean to cross-examine and reduce to helplessness the people opposite to you, who cannot escape.
“I am very glad, papa,” said Marion, “that you have got over your little tiff, and all come so nice and friendly home. I knew quite well that you and mamma would very soon make it up, but I was very anxious about Archie, who is a different question. And have you got any light about that cheque, or is it just the father falling on his neck, and the prodigal coming home?”