Mr. Brandreth’s courage rose with his escape; there came a moment when he was ready to face the worst; the moment did not come till the danger of the worst was past. Then he showed himself even eager to retrieve the effect of anxieties not compatible with a scrupulous self-respect.
“Why should we laugh at him?” Kane philosophized, in talking the matter over with Ray. “The ideals of generosity and self-devotion are preposterous in our circumstances. He was quite right to be cautious, to be prudent, to protect his business and his bosom from the invasion of others’ misfortunes, and to look anxiously out for the main chance. Who would do it for him, if he neglected this first and most obvious duty? He has behaved most thoughtfully and kindly toward Peace through it all, and I can’t blame him for not thrusting himself forward to offer help when nothing could really be done.”
Kane had himself remained discreetly in the background, and had not cumbered his old acquaintance with offers of service. He kept away from the funeral, but he afterwards visited Hughes frequently, though he recognized nothing more than the obligation of the early kindness between them. This had been affected by many years of separation and wide divergence of opinion, and it was doubtful whether his visits were altogether a pleasure to the invalid. They disputed a good deal, and sometimes when Hughes lost his voice from excitement and exhaustion, Kane’s deep pipe kept on in a cool smooth assumption of positions which Hughes was physically unable to assail.
Mr. Chapley went out of town to his country place in Massachusetts, to try and get back his strength after a touch of the grippe. The Sunday conventicles had to be given up because Hughes could no longer lead them, and could not suffer the leadership of others. He was left mainly for society and consolation to the young fellow who did not let him feel that he differed from him, and was always gently patient with him.
Ray had outlived the grudge he felt at Kane for delivering him over to bonds which he shirked so lightly himself; but this was perhaps because they were no longer a burden. It was not possible for him to refuse his presence to the old man when he saw that it was his sole pleasure; he had come to share the pleasure of these meetings himself. As the days which must be fewer and fewer went by he tried to come every day, and Peace usually found him sitting with her father when she reached home at the end of the afternoon. Ray could get there first because his work on the newspaper was of a more flexible and desultory sort; and he often brought a bundle of books for review with him, and talked them over with Hughes, for whom he was a perspective of the literary world, with its affairs and events. Hughes took a vivid interest in the management of Ray’s department of Every Evening, and gave him advice about it, charging him not to allow it to be merely æsthetic, but to imbue it with an ethical quality; he maintained that literature should be the handmaid of reform; he regretted that he had not cast the material of The World Revisited in the form of fiction, which would have given it a charm impossible to a merely polemical treatise.
“I’m convinced that if I had it in that shape it would readily find a publisher, and I’m going to see what I can do to work it over as soon as I’m about again.”
“I hope you’ll be luckier than I’ve been with fiction,” said Ray. “I don’t know but it might be a good plan to turn A Modern Romeo into a polemical treatise. We might change about, Mr. Hughes.”
Hughes said, “Why don’t you bring your story up here and read it to me?”
“Wouldn’t that be taking an unfair advantage of you?” Ray asked. “Just at present my chief’s looking over it, to see if it won’t do for the feuilleton we’re going to try. He won’t want it; but it affords a little respite for you, Mr. Hughes, as long as he thinks he may.”
He knew that Peace must share his constraint in speaking of his book. When they were alone for a little while before he went away that evening he said to her, “You have never told me yet that you forgave me for my bad behavior about my book the last time we talked about it.”