But who are the strong? How can they judge of their prowess until they are in the thick of the fray? If it fails them then, it"s too late--and away to the horse-pond! You do poor service to a friend if you flatter him in this matter. When he finds himself in the pond, he will not be so grateful for your good opinion.
Winnie came in, bright-eyed, softly singing, making for upstairs at a hasty pace.
"I shall be late for dinner!" she cried. "I met Mr. Ledstone, and he made me go for a little walk."
"Did you enjoy it?" asked Stephen politely.
"Yes, thank you, Stephen, very much."
She was gone. Stephen sighed. She had only one life--that was the unspoken plea of her youth, her beauty, and her new-born zest in living.
Say what you like, the plea was cogent.
CHAPTER VII
A CODE AND A THEORY
To probe G.o.dfrey Ledstone"s mind would be to come up against the odd bundle of ideas which const.i.tutes the average young man"s workaday morality--the code before mentioned. This congeries of rules, exceptions, compromises, strictnesses, and elasticities may be condemned; it cannot be sneered at or lightly dismissed. It has, on the whole, satisfied centuries; only at rare intervals has it been seriously interfered with by the powers that be, by Church, or State, or Church-ruled State.
To interfere seriously with it is to rouse a hive of questions, large, difficult, so profoundly awkward as to appal statesmen, lay or ecclesiastical--questions not only moral and religious, but social and economic. Formal condemnation and practical tolerance leave these questions sleeping. The code goes on, exercising its semi-secret underground jurisdiction--a law never promulgated, but widely obeyed, a religion with millions of adherents and not a single preacher. Rather a queer way for the world to live? Rather a desperate attempt at striking a balance between nature and civilization? No doubt. But then, of course, it is only temporary. We are all going to be good some day. To make us all good, to make it possible for us all to be good, immediately--well, there is no telling but what that might involve a radical reconst.i.tution of society. And would even that serve the turn?
The code never had a more unquestioning, a more contented adherent than G.o.dfrey. Without theorizing--he disliked theories and had a good-natured distrust of them--he hit just that balance of conduct whereof the code approves; if he had talked about the matter at all (the code does not favour too much talking) he might have said that he was "not a saint"
but that he "played the game." His fellow-adherents would understand perfectly what he meant. And the last thing in the world that he contemplated or desired was to attack, or openly to flout, accepted standards. The code never encourages a man to do that. Besides, he had a father, a mother, and a sister, orthodox-thinking people, very fond and proud of him; he would not willingly do or say anything to shock them.
Even from a professional point of view--but when the higher motives are sufficient to decide the issue, why need they invoke the somewhat compromising alliance of others purely prudential?
By now he was very much in love with Winnie Maxon, but he was also desperately vexed with her, and with all the amiable theorizers at Shaylor"s Patch. The opportunity had seemed perfect for what he wanted, and what he wanted seemed exactly one of the allowed compromises--an ideal elasticity! Whom would it wrong? Not Cyril Maxon, surely? He was out of court. Whom would it offend? There was n.o.body to offend, if the affair were managed quietly--as it could be here in the country. And she liked him; though he had made no declaration yet, he could not doubt that she liked him very much.
But the theorizers had been at her. When he delicately felt his way, discussing her position, or, professedly, the position of women in general whose marriages had proved a failure, she leant back, looking adorably pretty, and calmly came out with a remark of a profoundly disconcerting nature.
"If I ever decided to--to link my life with a man"s again, I should do it quite openly. I should tell my husband and my friends. I should consider myself as doing just the same thing as if I were marrying again. I talked it all over with Tora the other night, and she quite agreed with me."
Agreed with her! Tora had put it into her head, of course, G.o.dfrey thought angrily. The idea had Tora"s hall-mark stamped large in its serene straightforward irrationality.
"But that"d mean an awful row, and the--a case, and all that!"
"I hope it would. But Cyril doesn"t approve of divorce."
"Then you"d never be able to--to get regular, as long as he lived."
"I think I should be regular, without getting regular," she answered, smiling.
"What"s the good of defying the world?"
"Isn"t that the only way bad things get altered?"
"It needs a good deal of courage to do things like that--right or wrong."
"I should rely on the man I loved to give me the courage."
G.o.dfrey did not wish to admit that the man whom (as he hoped) she loved lacked courage. The answer irritated him; he sat frowning sulkily, his usual gaiety sadly overcast. Winnie"s eyes scanned his face for a moment; then, with a sigh, she looked over the lawn to the valley below.
She was disappointed with the reception of her great idea. "Of course the two people would have to be very much in love with one another," she added, with a little falter in her voice.
He found a way out of his difficulty. "The more a man loved a woman, the less likely he"d be to consent to put her in such a position," he argued. His face cleared; he was pleased with his point; it was good, according to the code.
"It would be the only honourable position for her," Winnie retorted.
He rose to his feet in a temper; it was all so unreasonable. "I must go."
"Are you coming to anything to-morrow?"
"No, I shall be in town to-morrow. I dare say I shall stay a night or two." This was by way of revenge--or punishment. Let her see how she liked Shaylor"s Patch without him!
She turned to him, holding out her hand; in her eyes was raillery, half-reproachful, half-merry. "Come back in a better temper!" she said.
"I"m a fool to come back at all." He kissed her hand and looked steadily into her eyes before he went away.
Himself at once a poor and a pleasure-loving man, G.o.dfrey had the good luck to own a well-to-do and devoted friend, always delighted to "put him up" and to give him the best of hospitality. Bob Purnett and he were old schoolfellows and had never lost sight of one another. Bob had four thousand a year of his own (though not of his own making), and in the summer he had no work to do; in the winter he hunted. He was a jovial being and very popular, except with the House Committee and the cook of his club; to these unfortunate officials he was in the nature of a perpetual a.s.size Court presided over by a "Hanging Judge."
He gave G.o.dfrey a beautiful dinner and a magnum of fine claret; let it be set down to his credit that he drank--and gave--fine claret at small dinners. He knew better than to be intemperate. Did he not want to go on hunting as long as possible? Nor was G.o.dfrey given to excess in wine-drinking. Still the dinner, the claret, the old friendship, the liqueur, the good cigar, did their work. G.o.dfrey found himself putting the case. It appeared to Bob Purnett a curious one.
"But it"s rot," he observed. "You"re married or you"re not--eh?" He himself was not--quite distinctly. "Must be very pretty, or she wouldn"t expect you to stand it?"
G.o.dfrey laughed. There was a primitive truthfulness about Purnett"s conversation. He was not sophisticated by thought or entangled in theory--quite different from the people at Shaylor"s Patch.
"She is very pretty; and absolutely a lady--and straight, and all that."
"Then let it alone," counselled Bob Purnett.
"I can"t help it, old chap." Again the primitive note--the cry that there are limits to human endurance! G.o.dfrey had not meant to utter it.
The saying of it was an illumination to himself. Up to now he had thought that he could help it--and would, if he were faced with theories and irrationality.
"Let"s go to a Hall?" Bob suggested.
"I"d like a quiet evening and just a jaw."
Bob looked gravely sympathetic. "Oh, you"ve got it in the neck!" he said, with a touch of reverent wonder in his voice--something like the awe that madmen inspired in our forbears. G.o.dfrey was possessed!
"Yes, I have--and I don"t know what the deuce to do."
"Well, what the deuce are you to do?" asked Purnett. His healthy, ruddy, unwrinkled face expressed an honest perplexity. "Must be a rum little card--isn"t she?"
"I can"t help it, Bob."
"Dashed awkward!"
In fact these two adherents of the code--may it be written honest adherents, for they neither invented nor defended, but merely inherited it?--were frankly puzzled. There is a term in logic--dichotomy--a sharp division, a cutting in two, an opposing of contradictories. You are honest or not honest, sober or not sober. Rough reasoning, but the police courts have to work on it. So you are regular or irregular. But people who want to make the irregular regular--that is as great a shock to the adherents of the code as their tenets are to the upholders of a different law. The denial of one"s presuppositions is always a shock--because one must start from somewhere. It is a "shock to credit"--credit of some kind--and how are any of us to get on without credit?