“A violet growing under a hedge is sweeter than a violet crushed in the road.”
Tom knew he had talked nonsense. He always did when he would not face the sincere part of him that wished to speak. There was no time to lose. He must tell the truth.
“I am not trying to corrupt him:—I like him, Cornelia: I want him where I can be with him. So long as he stays in his ivory-tower of dreams I cannot have as much of him as I want. But, Sister! I am no prince of darkness. If I have plunged into chaos it is because that is where the money is. I am lonely there as a good angel would be in hell. I won’t be with David. I tell you, one can be lonely and untouched even at a Reception, one can be guileless even in a courtroom. I am. These things pass over me like sticks and stones—smarting my skin. I do not want to change David. I want him near me. I want him to change me. Your mistake is the horror you have for surroundings that you know nothing about. A usual result of ignorance, my dearest. David will be as unchanged, certainly, as I.”
“Why do you want to drag him into your noisy world?”
“I can’t have a friend, by long distance.”
“There’s something more in it than that.”
Tom looked, not to deny but to learn. His face was open, sincerely in search.
“I don’t understand,” she went on. “If you really wanted him to change you, were willing at all to be like him, you’d meet him half way. I have seen how you ply him with your cynicisms, heckle him with your invitations to ‘begin to live.’”
“If I met him half way I’d come back with half a practice.”
“Nonsense! You could live your professional life without him. Social demands don’t go into one’s intimate hours. There is something else. You really want to take David about with you—into the thick of the scrimmage. Every word you say to him is a sort of preparation for his entrance. Why?”