“It did not. Which is exactly why Datcherd has every reason to be annoyed. Well, you can tell him from me that it was no one’s fault but your own. Good-night.”
He departed, more in anger than in sorrow—(it had really been rather fun to-night, though rude)—and Eddy went to find Datcherd.
But he didn’t find Datcherd. He was told that Datcherd had left the Club and gone home. His friend’s remark came back to him. “He kept the other end of the room, the way he wouldn’t break out at me and say anything ferocious.” Was that what Datcherd was doing to him, or was he tired after his journey? Eddy hoped for the best, but felt forebodings. Datcherd certainly had not looked cordial or cheerful. The way he had looked had disappointed and rather hurt the Club. They felt that another expression, after three months absence, would have been more suitable. After all, for pleasantness of demeanour, Mr. Datcherd, even at the best of times (which this, it seemed, hardly was) wasn’t a patch on Mr. Oliver.
These events occurred on a Friday evening. It so happened that Eddy was going out of town next morning for a Cambridge week-end, so he would not see Datcherd till Monday evening. He and Arnold spent the week-end at Arnold’s home. Whenever Eddy visited the Denisons he was struck afresh by the extreme and rarefied refinement of their atmosphere; they (except Arnold, who had been coarsened, like himself, by contact with the world) were academic in the best sense; theoretical, philosophical, idealistic, serenely sure of truth, making up in breeding what, possibly, they a little lacked (at least Mrs. Denison and her daughter lacked) in humour; never swerving from the political, religious, and economic position they had taken up once and for all. A trifle impenetrable and closed to new issues, they were; the sort of Liberal one felt would never, however changed the circumstances, become Conservative. A valuable type, representing breeding and conscience in a rough-and-tumble world; if Christian and Anglican, it often belongs to the Christian Social Union; if not, like the Denisons, it will surely belong to some other well-intentioned and high-principled society for bettering the poor. They are, in brief, gentlemen and ladies. Life in the country is too sleepy for them and their progressive ideas; London is quite too wide awake; so they flourish like exquisite flowers in our older Universities and in Manchester, and visit Greece and Italy in the vacations.
Eddy found it peaceful to be with the Denisons. To come back to London on Monday morning was a little disturbing. He could not help a slight feeling of anxiety about his meeting with Datcherd. Perhaps it was just as well, he thought, to have given Datcherd two days to recover from the shock of the Unionist meeting. He hoped that Datcherd, when he met him, would look less like a Home Ruler listening to Orange cheering (a very unpleasant expression of countenance) than he had on Friday evening. Thinking that he might as well find out about this as soon as possible, he called at Datcherd’s house that afternoon.
Datcherd was in his library, as usual, writing. He got up and shook hands with Eddy, and said, “I was coming round to see you,” which relieved Eddy. But he spoke rather gravely, and added, “There are some things I want to talk to you about,” and sat down and nursed his gaunt knee in his thin hands and gnawed his lips.
Eddy asked him if he was much better, thinking he didn’t look it, and if he had had a good time. Datcherd scarcely answered; he was one of those people who only think of one thing at once, and he was thinking just now of something other than his health or his good time.
He said, after a moment’s silence, “It’s been extremely kind of you to manage the Club all this time.”
Eddy, with a wan smile, said apologetically, “You know, we really did have a Home Ruler to speak on Wednesday.”
Datcherd relaxed a little, and smiled in his turn.