“He is not,” she told him. “The doctor says he must go away—out of England—for quite a month, and have no bother or work at all. It’s partly nerves, you see, and over-work. Someone will have to go with him, to look after him, but they’ve not settled who yet. He’ll probably go to Greece, and walk about.... Anyhow he’s to be away somewhere.... And he’s been destroying himself with worry because he must leave his work—the settlement and everything—and he’s afraid it will go to pieces. You know he has the Club House open every evening for the boys and young men, and goes down there himself several nights a week. What we thought was that perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking charge, being generally responsible, in fact. There are several helpers, of course, but Hugh wants someone to see after it and get people to give lectures and keep the thing going. We thought you’d perhaps have the time, and we knew you had the experience and could do it. It’s very important to have someone at the top that they like; it just makes all the difference. And Hugh thinks it so hopeful that they turned you out of St. Gregory’s; he doesn’t entirely approve of St. Gregory’s, as you know. Now will you?”
Eddy, after due consideration, said he would do the best he could.
“I shall be very inept, you know. Will it matter much? I suppose the men down there—Pollard and the rest—will see me through. And you’ll be coming down sometimes, perhaps.”
She said “I may,” then looked at him for a moment speculatively, and added, “But I may not. I might be away, with Hugh.”
“Oh,” said Eddy.
“If no one else satisfactory can go with him,” she said. “He must have the right person. Someone who, besides looking after him, will make him like living and travelling and seeing things. That’s very important, the doctor says. He is such a terribly depressed person, poor Hugh. I can brighten him up. So I rather expect I will go, and walk about Greece with him. We would both like it, of course.”
“Of course,” said Eddy, his chin on his hand, looking out of the window at the orange trees that grew in tubs by the door.
“And, lest we should have people shocked,” added Eileen, “Bridget’s coming too. Not that we mind people with that sort of horrible mind being shocked—but it wouldn’t do to spoil Hugh’s work by it, and it might. Hugh, of course, doesn’t want things said about me, either. People are so stupid. I wonder will the time ever come when two friends can go about together the way no harm will be said. Bridget thinks never. But after all, if no one’s prepared to set an example of common-sense, how are we to move on ever out of all this horrid, improper tangle and muddle? Jane, of course, says, what does it matter, no one who counts would mind; but then for Jane so few people count. Jane would do it herself to-morrow, and never even suspect that anyone was shocked. But one can’t have people saying things about Hugh, and he running clubs and settlements and things; it would destroy him and them; he’s one of the people who’ve got to be careful; which is a bore, but can’t be helped.”
“No, it can’t be helped,” Eddy agreed. “One doesn’t want people to be hurt or shocked, even apart from clubs and things; and so many even of the nicest people would be.”
There she differed from him. “Not the nicest. The less nice. The foolish, the coarse-minded, the shut-in, the—the tiresome.”