This is what Mr. Challis is writing now: "... I like the talky chap better than the son and heir. He's a lord. They neither of them take to me because I'm not 'Varsity. I came down in the train with them, only not the same carriage. I rode third, of course; there were no seconds." The writer felt that it was very clever of the thirds to be thirds at all when there were no seconds, but decided not to write it—as too subtle for the intellect of his impossible she—and wrote on: "I saw them playing cards in a smoking-carriage, and recognized the son and heir by his portrait. It isn't a bit like him. There's a fat pink politician here, with little eyes, who talks thirty-two to the dozen. His name is Ramsey Tomes. He pinned my host as he was coming from the dinner-table, and detained him ever so long. We heard the rumble of his rounded periods afar"—will she understand that? thought the writer—"long after everyone else had followed the womankind to the drawing-room. However, they came up in time for the music, and I heard Mr. Tomes assuring Sir Murgatroyd that his respect for that Bart was so intense that he would reconsider the whole of his political opinions forthwith, but without the slightest expectation of changing one jot or one tittle of them." Here the writer abstained, consideratively, with his pen delayed over the inkstand, from inditing that he had never met with a "tittle" out of the company of its invariable jot. That would be too deep for this wife of his. He brought the pen slowly into the arena again. "Sir Murgatroyd repeated the same sentiment in several different words. As for all the other people, I must tell about them gradually, or leave them till I come home. The younger daughter, Sibyl—that's how to spell her name—not Sybil, remember—strikes me as a little waspish. Judith, the other, is a tall, handsome woman, with a figure expensive to dress but a little prepotente." He let this word stand, having written it, though he felt sure that the impossible one's Italian would not cover it. He did not mind leaving her to choose a meaning for it; it franked him of any responsibility. Then he thought he had written enough, and ended up: "You need not be uneasy about my neuralgia. I feel better already and shall have a hot bath first thing in the morning.—Your loving mate, A. C." But he added an amends for an omission—"Kiss the kids from me."
Then he betrayed further uneasiness of conscience by saying to himself: "After all, she's much better at home with the babies. She would never get on among these people." Whether it occurred to the good gentleman that he had it in his power to alter the position of the pieces on the board we do not know. If it did, the idea soon vanished behind a speculation whether the next guest after him would have a new acreage of clean sheet and pillow all to himself; and if not, what a lot of washing went for nothing! He almost wished he was a chimney-sweep, to make it valid.
[CHAPTER IV]
OF MISS ARKROYD AND HER AVIARY. HOW MR. CHALLIS WALKED IN THE GARDEN WITH HER. OF MR. TRIPTOLEMUS WRAXALL. AND OF HOW MR. CHALLIS WROTE TO HIS WIFE
It is bewildering to reflect on the number of avenues open to Society by which to approach its own final perfection. And disappointing, too, when a start has been made along some promising one, to come so soon to a parting of the ways, with never a signpost—not so much as a stray uncrucified Messiah for a guide—as the night falls over the land. For even so, each last new Theory of Perfectibility, each panacea for the endemics that afflict us, seems to pass from the glory of its dawn to the chill hours of its doubt; and its Apostles fall away and change their minds, and its subscribers discontinue their subscriptions, and it becomes out of date. And those who have not lain low, like Br'er Fox, but have committed themselves past all recall to its infallibility, are sorry because they cannot remind us that they said so all along, only they were never paid the slightest attention to.
It is possible that some such perceptions passed through Mr. Challis's reflective mind in the course of next day at Royd. He began to find out that he was in a sort of hornet's nest of Reformers, every one of them anxious to point out avenues of salvation for Society. For Sir Murgatroyd, who was the soul of liberality towards every doctrine, political, religious, or social, that he had no prejudice against, liked nothing better than to crowd his house full of reforming theorists. Was he not himself one, and the author of a pamphlet called "The Higher Socialism: An Essay towards a Better Understanding of the Feudal System"? He therefore welcomed with splendid hospitality every advocate of every doctrine that was undoubtedly new, only two conditions being complied with. One was that if it was a New Morality it should be possible to enter into its details without shocking—suppose we say—a hardened reader of Laurence Sterne; and the other that it should not countenance, palliate, advocate, encourage, support, or lend adhesion to his especial bête noire, the Americanization of our Institutions. On this particular occasion a fine bag of neo-archs—how apologize for such a word?—had been secured by him during his summer holiday; and when Mr. Challis made his appearance at the breakfast-table next morning, he was buttonholed away from its beautiful clean damask by a brace of Thinkers, each anxious to communicate his Thoughts, and, if possible, entangle the sympathies of a powerful pen "Titus Scroop" was known to possess.
It is annoying to be interrupted when you are making up your mind what you'll have; and then you take poached eggs when you want filleted plaice, or vice-versa. Mr. Challis showed intrepidity, saying to a disciple of the learned German reformer Graubosch: "I make a point of never listening to anything worth hearing at breakfast." It was a clever repulse; but committed him to capitulation to Graubosch later. He succeeded, but with a like reservation, in escaping from an advocate of a really formidable system of Assurance which would have widespread effects on Society, by saying—as though the first few words of its exponent had gone home to him—"You and I must talk that out over a game of billiards." The fact is this gentleman had not been sufficiently congratulated about his last book, so far, by the ladies of the family; and he felt a strong bias towards being flattered by Miss Arkroyd particularly, although in his letter to his wife he had spoken with coldness—ostentatious, and he knew it—of this young lady's fascinations. So he was already scheming in his heart to get her in a corner by herself, where she would be able to express her wonder at his insight into things no one else—except she and he, presumably—knew anything about. He was perceptibly conscious that the short interview between himself and this very good-looking young lady, the evening before, had lacked reference to his insight, and that recognition in that quarter would be pleasant.
It is a little difficult to saunter away from Thinkers who are convinced that you will be interested in their Thoughts, especially if you have given any of them the right to begin, "Referring to what we were saying yesterday, etc."; or, "I have been thinking over that apparent contradiction, etc." But it can be done, with tact. Mr. Challis had not a perfectly clear record of avoidance of Philosophy: his buttonholers of the morning could have pleaded justifications. So he felt diplomatic as he got into another coat because the sun was quite hot in the garden, and then came down the other stairs, where he was sure to meet nobody, and so through the kitchen-gardens to the Inigo Jones orangery that was now an aviary. That was where Miss Arkroyd had said she was going—not to him, but to someone else in his hearing. So clearly so that it was almost as good as if he hadn't heard, but had approached her by accident, when he came upon her out of a side-avenue of clipped hedges. By that time he was sauntering quite naturally, with a cigar in his mouth, just begun. This was as it should be.