Philip was a little bothered by what Madge had told him. In honest dealing he was unable to comprehend how man or woman could have any knowledge or design which might not be communicated to the person who was nearest in affection to him or her. He took for granted that he must stand nearest in affection to Madge. If the knowledge or design was not intended to hurt anybody, why should there be any mystery about it? The more light that shone upon one’s work, the better it would be done. Those who by choice worked in the dark must be trying to deceive somebody—maybe themselves. He had as little liking for mysteries as Aunt Hessy herself, because he could not see the use of them.
Had he consulted his brother Coutts on this subject, he would have learned from that City philosopher that the business of every man was to cheat—well, if the sound was more pleasing, overreach—every other man. Only a fool would make plain to others what he was going to do and how he meant to do it—and the fool paid the penalty of his folly by going promptly to the wall. He would have learned that in the race for Fortune there are many runners who want to be first to reach the winning-post. Therefore, it behoved every racer to keep the qualities of his horse dark, and to keep his fellows ignorant of the turns on the course where he purposed to put on an extra spurt and outwit them.
‘A clever lie,’ Coutts would have said with his cynical smile, ‘often saves much trouble, and wins the game. Most of the losers grin and bear, and whilst congratulating the winner, laugh at the “truthful James” who grumbles that he has lost because he did not understand or could not submit to the recognised rules of the course.’
‘But how can a lie be necessary?’ Philip would have asked—‘how can it be useful unless you mean to cheat?’
That was his great stumbling-block: he could not understand the use of a lie, any more than he could understand a captain in a fog running his vessel straight ahead without regard to compass or charts.
Coutts would regard him pityingly, and answer with the calmness of one whose principles are founded upon established law:
‘Why I tell a lie is because I wish to gain an advantage over somebody. If gaining this advantage be cheating, then I must cheat, because everybody else is doing the same thing; or I must submit to be cheated. However, in the City it is vulgar to talk about cheating and lies in connection with respectable business transactions. When we profit by the ignorance of others, we call it rules of trade, custom, and may occasionally go so far as to speak of sharp practice; but so long as a man keeps on the right side of the law, we never use such rude language as you do. When he gets to the wrong side of the law, however—that is, when he is found out—we are down upon him as heavily as you like. You had better not meddle with business, Philip, for you will be fleeced as easily as a sick sheep.’
Philip turned away in disgust from the ethics of selfishness as expounded by his brother, and refused to believe that the primary rule for success in business was to do the best for yourself no matter what others lose, or that any enterprise of moment had ever been carried to a successful issue under the guidance of such a theory. People might hold their tongues when silence meant no harm to any one and possible good to somebody. That was right, and that was what Madge was doing.
So, after the first sensation of bother—for it was not displeasure or suspicion of any kind: only a mixed feeling of regret and astonishment that there could be, even for a brief period, a thought which they might not both possess—he proceeded with the work in hand. She gave him what is most precious to the enthusiast, sympathy and faith in his visions.
‘People of experience,’ he told her, ‘say that I am aiming at an ideal condition of men, which is pretty as an ideal, and absolutely impracticable until human nature has so altered that all men are honest. Besides, they say, I am really striving after community of interest, which has been tried before and failed. Robert Owen tried it long ago—Hawthorne and his friends tried it—and failed. I answer, that although my object is the same as theirs, my way of reaching it is different. It is certainly community of interest that I seek to establish, but under this condition—that the most industrious and most gifted shall take their proper places and reap their due reward. Every man is to stand upon his own merits: if fortune be his aim, let him win it by hard work of hand and brain. The man who works hardest will get most, and he who works least will get least. I think that is perfectly simple, and easily understood by any man or woman who is willing to work. There are to be no drones, as I have said, to hamper the progress of the workers.’