Mr. Welwyn concluded this explanation with a rather helpless gesture.
It was an awkward and difficult moment. With all his faults he was a man of feeling, with a gentleman"s inherent distaste for anything savouring of sharp practice; and he knew that the boy before him felt the situation as acutely as himself. There are few sadder sights than that of an old man eating humble pie to a young man.
But d.i.c.ky, The Freak, was equal to the occasion. He answered gravely:--
"The point of view which I prefer to take, Mr. Welwyn, is this--that you were all trying to do a good turn to Tilly."
"Thank you, d.i.c.k," said Mr. Welwyn simply. "Still, there was a second reason which I thought might perhaps keep you away."
"What was that?"
"Well--the presence in one"s abode of a sheriff"s officer is apt to exercise a dispersive influence upon one"s calling acquaintance."
"On this occasion, however," replied d.i.c.ky serenely, "you will find that a calling acquaintance has dispersed the sheriff"s officer."
Mr. Welwyn, who had been perambulating the room, stopped dead.
"You don"t mean to tell me," he exclaimed, "that the fellow is gone?"
d.i.c.ky nodded. "Five minutes ago," he said.
"But--I don"t understand," muttered the elder man. "Did you _kick_ him out? If so, the fat is in the fire with a--"
"He left this behind him," interposed d.i.c.ky awkwardly. "Under the circ.u.mstances--I took the liberty."
Mr. Welwyn gazed long and silently at the stamped doc.u.ment which lay beneath his eyes. Then he looked up at d.i.c.ky and made a movement as if to shake hands; then drew back and bowed, not without dignity.
"Mr. Mainwaring," he said, "I thank you. I will leave it at that. If I possessed a less intimate knowledge of my own character, I should hasten to give utterance to the sentiment which at this moment dominates my mind--namely, a sincere determination never to rest until I have repaid you this sum. But I have not arrived at my present estate without learning that any such impulse on my part would be entirely transitory.
From the age of five I can never recollect having formed a single resolution that I was able to keep. I therefore accept your very generous aid without protest or false pride. My wife, of course, would not approve. She comes of a cla.s.s whose sole criterion of respectability is a laborious solvency during life and an expensive funeral after death. Do not imagine that I am belittling her. She is the one sound investment I ever made. I need not trouble you with the facts of our courtship and marriage; but I will tell you this, my boy, that if a man had real cause to be grateful for and proud of his wife, that man is Lucius Welwyn. And the extraordinary part of it all is that she is proud of me--_me_! Instead of acting like a sensible woman and deploring me as a commercial and domestic liability, she persists in exalting me into a social a.s.set of the first water. I do not attempt to dispel these illusions of hers. In a woman"s hands an illusion, after she has fashioned it to the shape that pleases her, hardens into a solid, enduring, and comforting fact. Perhaps, then, things are best as they are. But I cherish no illusions about myself. I know my limits.
I am a considerate husband and an affectionate father. My temper, except at times of the severest domestic stringency, is irreproachable; and I find myself generally regarded as good company by my friends. But I am not a worldly success. I take life too easily, perhaps. I allow others to step over my head. I am too ready to stand by and watch the pa.s.sing show, rather than plunge in and take my part."
The speaker paused, and for a moment his glance rested upon the honest, rather puzzled, but deeply interested eyes of the young man upon the sofa. Suddenly an exposition of candour came upon Mr. Welwyn.
"There was a time," he said in a less buoyant tone, "when these propensities of mine used to distress me. The day I was deprived of my Fellowship, for instance--"
His voice shook suddenly.
"Don"t tell me about it, sir, if you would rather not," said d.i.c.ky quietly.
"For drunkenness, Mr. Mainwaring--for drunkenness!" burst out Mr.
Welwyn. "Not for chronic, sordid soaking--that has never been a foible of mine--but for characteristic inability to do things in their right order. Take warning by me, d.i.c.k, and never put the cart before the horse. I had been invited to lecture to a very learned body upon a very special occasion. A successful appearance would have gained me my F.R.S. The natural and proper course for me to pursue was to deliver the lecture first and treat myself to a magnum of champagne afterwards.
What I actually did was to treat myself to the magnum of champagne and then deliver the lecture. I may say with all modesty that that lecture caused a profound sensation. It is still quoted--but not in textbooks; and it ended my University career. My life since has been a series of similar incidents--disaster arising from my inherent inability to distinguish between the time to be merry and the time to sing psalms.
Still, I keep on smiling. Fortune has not touched me for many years now.
Fortune likes fresh blood: once you get used to her she leaves you alone. You see the manner of man I now am--a seasoned philosopher--a man who takes life as it comes--a man who never meets trouble halfway--a man unburdened by the sentimental craving, so prevalent in this hysterical age, to confer unsolicited benefits upon his fellows--a man unhampered at the same time by narrow scruples about accepting, in the spirit in which it is offered, the occasional a.s.sistance of his friends.
In short, a sane, dispa.s.sionate, evenly balanced man of the world, insured against sudden upheaval by a sense of proportion, and against depression of spirits by a sense of humour."
Mr. Welwyn paused again, and there was another silence, punctuated by the rattle of traffic outside. Presently he continued, in yet another mood:--
"Sometimes my point of view changes. I look at myself, and what do I see? An elderly, shabby-genteel inhabitant of Bloomsbury, with not a single memory of the past to fall back on, save that of a youth utterly wasted--a youth hung about with golden opportunities, each and all successively disregarded from a fatuous, childish belief that the supply was inexhaustible--and with nothing to look forward to but a further period of dependence upon a wife who is as much my moral superior as she is my social inferior. An earner of casual guineas--a picker-up of stray newspapers--the recipient of refreshment respectfully proffered by unintellectual but infinitely more worthy a.s.sociates in bar parlours. A loafer--a waster--a _failure_! That, Mr. Mainwaring, is the father of the girl whom you desire to marry.... I am not what you would call religious, but sometimes the impulse comes upon me--and I obey it forthwith--to go down upon my knees and thank G.o.d from the bottom of my heart that my children take after their mother."
The broken scholar dropped wearily into his chair.
"Youth! Youth! Youth! Youth!" he murmured. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth!"
His head slipped down between his hands.
d.i.c.ky, curiously stirred, attempted to say some word, but nothing came.
Suddenly Mr. Welwyn sprang to his feet. The cloud had lifted, or else pride had come to the rescue. It is often difficult to tell which.
"d.i.c.k," he said, "I perceive from your att.i.tude that you are about to be sympathetic. Don"t! Sympathy is wasted on me. In five minutes from now this mood will have pa.s.sed. In half an hour I shall be as happy as an ostrich with its head in the sand. That has been my lifelong posture, and a very comfortable posture, too, once you get used to it! It is only when one comes up to breathe that things hurt a bit. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go out. I have had a letter this morning offering me some exceedingly welcome and possibly permanent work. I do not know where Tilly is, but she should be in presently. I do not ask what your business with her may be. I have no right--and no need."
The two men shook hands.
"Good-bye, dear d.i.c.k," said Mr. Welwyn, "and thank you for the very un.o.btrusive manner in which you have helped a lame dog over a stile."
Next moment the door closed, and he was gone.
"We are queer mixtures," mused philosophic d.i.c.ky.... "I wonder where Tilly is!"
Five minutes later the drawing-room door opened again, this time to admit little "Melia. She paused and drew back, at the spectacle of her late ally sprawling at ease before the scanty fire.
"Hallo, "Melia!" said d.i.c.ky cheerfully.
"Hallo!" replied Amelia cautiously. "Have you come to--see mother?"
"Not to-day, thank you," said d.i.c.ky. He regarded the little girl curiously. "I say, "Melia, have I offended you in any way?"
"You? Me? No!" replied Amelia, in wide-eyed surprise. "Why?"
d.i.c.ky smiled coyly.
"There used to be a pleasant little form of greeting," he intimated.
"You still want to?" cried "Melia in a flutter.
"Please."
Next moment Miss Amelia Welwyn, feeling that the bottom had not dropped out of the universe after all, was giving Mr. Richard Mainwaring a kiss.
"Where is Tilly this morning?" asked d.i.c.ky carelessly.
"Gone out," said Amelia--"to look for a job. She gave up the other one when she got--engaged."
"I see," said d.i.c.ky, nodding his head.
"I suppose you have come to break it off," continued the experienced Amelia. "They all said last night you were bound to do it, after what had happened."