"I am not. I only say it is not of the most vital importance. Thackeray was a Titan—well, look at his slipshod style in places, his careless grammar, his constant tautology. He knew better, and he could have done better, and it would have been well if he had, I don't deny it; but his work would not have been a scrap more vital, nor he himself the greater. I have seen numbers of people here in town studying art. They go to the schools to learn to draw, not because they have ideas to express, apparently, but in the hope that ideas will come when they know how to express them. And I think it is the same in literature. One school talks of style as if it were the end and not the means. They form a style, but have nothing to express that is worth expressing. It would be better to pray the gods to send them the matter; if the matter is there in the mind it will out, and the manner will form itself in the effort to produce it—so said the great."
There was a pause, during which Alfred Cayley Pounce sighed heavily and Beth looked at the clock.
"You were stimulating as a child, Beth," he said at last, "and you are stimulating still. Think what it would be to me to have you always by my side! I cannot—I cannot let you go again now that I have found you! We were boy and girl together."
"That does not alter anything in our present position," Beth answered; "nor does it affect my principles in any way. But even if I had been inclined—if I had had no principles, I should have been just clever enough to know better than to run any risk of the kind you suggest. You do not know perhaps that you have injured your own standing already—that there are houses in which you are not welcome because you are suspected of intrigue."
"Me—suspected of intrigue!" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible!"
Beth laughed. "If it is so disagreeable to be suspected," she said, "what would it be to be found out! And what have you gained by it? What says the Dhammapada? 'There is bad reputation, and the evil way (to hell); there is the short pleasure of the frightened in the arms of the frightened, and the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore let no man think of his neighbour's wife.'"
"It is evident that you don't trust me," he said in an injured tone. "Ah, Beth! does the fact that we were boy and girl together not weigh with you?"
"Well, it would," Beth said soberly, "even if worldly wisdom were my only guide in life. I should think of the time that we got into that scrape, and you wriggled out of it, leaving me to shift for myself as best I could; and I should remember the boy is father to the man. But I have been trying to show you that worldly wisdom is not my only guide in life. I have professed the most positive puritan principles of conduct, and given you the reasons upon which they are based, yet you persist; you ignore what I say as if you had not heard me or did not believe me, and pursue the subject as if you were trying to weary me into agreement. And you have wearied me, but not into agreement; so, if you please, we will not discuss it any longer."
"You will be sorry, I think, some day for the way you have treated me," he exclaimed, showing temper; "and what you expect to gain by it I cannot imagine."
"Oh, please," Beth protested, "I am not imbued with the commercial spirit of the churches. I do not expect a percentage in the way of reward on every simple duty I do."