“Bravo!” cried Tracey, clapping his hands.
“Why bravo?” said I, testily. “Can the definition I hazard be construed into a defence of what I presume to be your view of the individual allegiance which each man owes to truth as he conceives it? No; for each man is bound to support and illustrate, with all his power, truth as truth seems to him, Raffaelle as Raffaelle, Titian as Titian, Shakespeare as Shakespeare, Milton as Milton, Pitt as Pitt, Fox as Fox. And the man who says, ‘I see truth in my own way, and I do not care to serve her cause;’ who, when Nature herself, ever moving, ever active, exhorts him to bestir himself for the truth he surveys, and to animate that truth with his own life and deed, shrugs his shoulder, and cries ‘Cui bono?’—that man, my dear Tracey, may talk very finely about despising renown, but in reality he shuffles off duty. Pardon me; I am thinking of you. I would take your part against others; but as friend to friend, and to your own face, I condemn you.”
To this discourteous speech Tracey was about to reply, when Lady Gertrude and Clara Thornhill entered the room to tell us that the boat was ready, and that we had less than two hours for aquatic adventure, as we were to dine at five.
“I am not sorry to have a little time to think over my answer to those reproaches which are compliments on the lips of friends,” said Tracey to me, resting his arm on my shoulder; and in a few minutes more we were gliding over the lake, with a gentle breeze from the hills, just lively enough to fill the sail. Clara, bewitchingest of those womanliest women who unfairly enthral and subdue us, while we not only know that their whole hearts are given to another, but love and respect them the more for it,—Clara nestled herself by my side. And I had not even the satisfaction of thinking that that infamous Henry was jealous. He did indeed once or twice pause from his nautical duties to vouchsafe us a scowl; but it was sufficiently evident that the monster was only angry because he knew that Clara loved him so well, that she was seeking to enlist me on her side against his abominable ambition of learning the art of homicide.
“Well,” whispered Clara to me—“well, you have spoken to Sir Percival!”
“Alas, yes! and in vain. He thinks that for your sake Henry must fulfil that dream of heroism, which perhaps first won your heart to him. Women very naturally love heroes; but then they must pay the tax for that noble attachment. Henry must become the glory of his country, and the major of a regiment in active service. My dear child—I mean, my dear Mrs Thornhill—don’t cry; be a hero’s wife! Tracey has convinced me that Henry is right; and my firm belief is that the chief motive which makes Henry covet laurels is to lay them at your feet.”
“The darling!” murmured Clara.
“You see your parents very naturally wished you to make a better worldly marriage. That difficulty was smoothed over, not by the merits of Henry, but the money of Sir Percival Tracey. Could you respect your husband if he were not secretly chafed at that thought? He desires to lift himself up to you even in your parents’ eyes, not by a miserable pecuniary settlement effected through a kinsman, but by his own deeds. Oppose that, and you humiliate him. Never humiliate a husband. Yield to it, and you win his heart and his gratitude for ever. Man must never be put into an inferior position to his helpmate. Is not that true? Thank you, my child—(come, the word is out)—for that pressure of my hand. You understand us men. Let Henry leave you, sure that his name will be mentioned with praise in his commanding officer’s report after some gallant action, looking forward to the day when, in command himself, Parliament shall vote him its thanks, and his sovereign award him her honours; and your Henry, as you cling in pride to his breast, shall whisper in words only heard by you—‘Wife mine, your parents are not ashamed of me now! All this is your work! all results from the yearning desire to show that the man whom you had singled out from the world was not unworthy of your love!’”
“But Henry does not say those pretty things,” sighed Clara, half smiling, half weeping.
“Say them? In words, of course not. What man, and especially what Englishman, does say pretty things? It is only authors, who are the interpreters of hearts, that say what lovers and heroes feel. But a look says to the beloved one more than authors can put into words. Henry’s look will tell you what you, his own, his wife, have been to him in the bivouac, in the battle; and you will love and reverence him the more because he does not say the pretty things into which I mince and sentimentalise the calm Englishman’s grand, silent, heartfelt combination of love with duty and with honour. My dear Clara, I speak to you as I would to my own daughter. Let your young soldier go. You and I indeed—the woman and the civilian—may talk as we will of distinctions between the defence of the island and the preservation of the empire. But a soldier is with his country’s flag wherever it is placed—whether in the wilds of Caffraria or on the cliffs of Dover. Clara, am I not right? Yes! you again press my hand. After all, there is not a noble beat in the heart of man which does not vibrate more nobly still in the heart of the wife who loves him!”