Her age struck Patrick as being about twenty-three.
"Could my nephew Arthur be of any use to you?" said Mrs. Adister.
"Colonel Adister?" Miss Mattock shook her head. "No."
"Arthur can be very energetic when he takes up a thing." "Can he? But, Mrs. Adister, you are looking a little troubled. Sometimes you confide in me. You are so good to us with your subscriptions that I always feel in your debt."
Patrick glanced at his hostess for a signal to rise and depart.
She gave none, but at once unfolded her perplexity, and requested Miss Mattock to peruse the composition of Mr. Patrick O"Donnell and deliver an opinion upon it.
The young lady took the letter without noticing its author. She read it through, handed it back, and sat with her opinion evidently formed within.
"What do you think of it?" she was asked.
"Rank jesuitry," she replied.
"I feared so!" sighed Mrs. Adister. "Yet it says everything I wish to have said. It spares my brother and it does not belie me. The effect of a letter is often most important. I cannot but consider this letter very ingenious. But the moment I hear it is jesuitical I forswear it. But then my dilemma remains. I cannot consent to give pain to my brother Edward: nor will I speak an untruth, though it be to save him from a wound. I am indeed troubled. Mr. Patrick, I cannot consent to despatch a jesuitical letter. You are sure of your impression, my dear Jane?"
"Perfectly," said Miss Mattock.
Patrick leaned to her. "But if the idea in the mind of the person supposed to be writing the letter is accurately expressed? Does it matter, if we call it jesuitical, if the emotion at work behind it happens to be a trifle so, according to your definition?"
She rejoined: "I should say, distinctly it matters."
"Then you"d not express the emotions at all?"
He flashed a comical look of astonishment as he spoke. She was not to be diverted; she settled into antagonism.
"I should write what I felt."
"But it might be like discharging a bullet."
"How?"
"If your writing in that way wounded the receiver."
"Of course I should endeavour not to wound!"
"And there the bit of jesuitry begins. And it"s innocent while it "s no worse than an effort to do a disagreeable thing as delicately as you can."
She shrugged as delicately as she could:
"We cannot possibly please everybody in life."
"No: only we may spare them a shock: mayn"t we?"
"Sophistries of any description, I detest."
"But sometimes you smile to please, don"t you?"
"Do you detect falseness in that?" she answered, after the demurest of pauses.
"No: but isn"t there a soupcon of sophistry in it?"
"I should say that it comes under the t.i.tle of common civility."
"And on occasion a little extra civility is permitted!"
"Perhaps: when we are not seeking a personal advantage."
"On behalf of the Steam Laundry?"
Miss Mattock grew restless: she was too serious in defending her position to submit to laugh, and his goodhumoured face forbade her taking offence.
"Well, perhaps, for that is in the interest of others."
"In the interests of poor and helpless females. And I agree with you with all my heart. But you would not be so considerate for the sore feelings of a father hearing what he hates to hear as to write a roundabout word to soften bad news to him?"
She sought refuge in the reply that nothing excused jesuitry.
"Except the necessities of civilisation," said Patrick.
"Politeness is one thing," she remarked pointedly.
"And domestic politeness is quite as needful as popular, you"ll admit.
And what more have we done in the letter than to be guilty of that? And people declare it"s rarer: as if we were to be shut up in families to tread on one another"s corns! Dear me! and after a time we should be having rank jesuitry advertised as the specific balsam for an unhappy domesticated population treading with hard heels from desperate habit and not the slightest intention to wound."
"My dear Jane," Mrs. Adister interposed while the young lady sat between mildly staring and blinking, "you have, though still of a tender age, so excellent a head that I could trust to your counsel blindfolded. It is really deep concern for my brother. I am also strongly in sympathy with my niece, the princess, that beautiful Adiante: and my conscience declines to let me say that I am not."
"We might perhaps presume to beg for Miss Mattock"s a.s.sistance in the composition of a second letter more to her taste," Patrick said slyly.
The effect was prompt: she sprang from her seat.
"Dear Mrs. Adister! I leave it to you. I am certain you and Mr.
O"Donnell know best. It"s too difficult and delicate for me. I am horribly blunt. Forgive me if I seemed to pretend to casuistry. I am sure I had no such meaning. I said what I thought. I always do. I never meant that it was not a very clever letter; and if it does exactly what you require it should be satisfactory. To-morrow evening John and I dine with you, and I look forward to plenty of controversy and amus.e.m.e.nt. At present I have only a head for work."
"I wish I had that," said Patrick devoutly.
She dropped her eyes on him, but without letting him perceive that he was a step nearer to the point of pleasing her.
CHAPTER XIII. THE DINNER-PARTY
Miss Mattock ventured on a prediction in her mind: