"You seem to have a great pa.s.sion for playing with shavings," he said.
"Is it a new one?"
"New what?"
"Pa.s.sion."
"I don"t know," she said, dropping her eyelids, and keeping on with her effort. She looked shyly aslant at him. "Perhaps you don"t approve of playing with shavings?"
"Oh yes, I do. I admire it very much. But it seems rather difficult.
I"ve a great ambition to put my foot on the shaving"s tail and hold it for you."
"Well," said the girl.
"Thank you," said the young man. He did so, and now she ran her parasol point easily through it. They looked at each other and laughed. "That was wonderful. Would you like to try another?" he asked.
"No, I thank you," she replied. "I think one will do."
They both laughed again, for whatever reason or no reason, and then the young girl became sober. To a girl everything a young man does is of significance; and if he holds a shaving down with his foot while she pokes through it with her parasol, she must ask herself what he means by it.
"They seem to be having rather a long interview with the carpenter to-day," said Irene, looking vaguely toward the ceiling. She turned with polite ceremony to Corey. "I"m afraid you"re letting them keep you. You mustn"t."
"Oh no. You"re letting me stay," he returned.
She bridled and bit her lip for pleasure. "I presume they will be down before a great while. Don"t you like the smell of the wood and the mortar? It"s so fresh."
"Yes, it"s delicious." He bent forward and picked up from the floor the shaving with which they had been playing, and put it to his nose.
"It"s like a flower. May I offer it to you?" he asked, as if it had been one.
"Oh, thank you, thank you!" She took it from him and put it into her belt, and then they both laughed once more.
Steps were heard descending. When the elder people reached the floor where they were sitting, Corey rose and presently took his leave.
"What makes you so solemn, "Rene?" asked Mrs. Lapham.
"Solemn?" echoed the girl. "I"m not a BIT solemn. What CAN you mean?"
Corey dined at home that evening, and as he sat looking across the table at his father, he said, "I wonder what the average literature of non-cultivated people is."
"Ah," said the elder, "I suspect the average is pretty low even with cultivated people. You don"t read a great many books yourself, Tom."
"No, I don"t," the young man confessed. "I read more books when I was with Stanton, last winter, than I had since I was a boy. But I read them because I must--there was nothing else to do. It wasn"t because I was fond of reading. Still I think I read with some sense of literature and the difference between authors. I don"t suppose that people generally do that; I have met people who had read books without troubling themselves to find out even the author"s name, much less trying to decide upon his quality. I suppose that"s the way the vast majority of people read."
"Yes. If authors were not almost necessarily recluses, and ignorant of the ignorance about them, I don"t see how they could endure it. Of course they are fated to be overwhelmed by oblivion at last, poor fellows; but to see it weltering all round them while they are in the very act of achieving immortality must be tremendously discouraging. I don"t suppose that we who have the habit of reading, and at least a nodding acquaintance with literature, can imagine the b.e.s.t.i.a.l darkness of the great ma.s.s of people--even people whose houses are rich and whose linen is purple and fine. But occasionally we get glimpses of it. I suppose you found the latest publications lying all about in Lapham cottage when you were down there?"
Young Corey laughed. "It wasn"t exactly c.u.mbered with them."
"No?"
"To tell the truth, I don"t suppose they ever buy books. The young ladies get novels that they hear talked of out of the circulating library."
"Had they knowledge enough to be ashamed of their ignorance?"
"Yes, in certain ways--to a certain degree."
"It"s a curious thing, this thing we call civilisation," said the elder musingly. "We think it is an affair of epochs and of nations. It"s really an affair of individuals. One brother will be civilised and the other a barbarian. I"ve occasionally met young girls who were so brutally, insolently, wilfully indifferent to the arts which make civilisation that they ought to have been clothed in the skins of wild beasts and gone about barefoot with clubs over their shoulders. Yet they were of polite origin, and their parents were at least respectful of the things that these young animals despised."
"I don"t think that is exactly the case with the Lapham family," said the son, smiling. "The father and mother rather apologised about not getting time to read, and the young ladies by no means scorned it."
"They are quite advanced!"
"They are going to have a library in their Beacon Street house."
"Oh, poor things! How are they ever going to get the books together?"
"Well, sir," said the son, colouring a little, "I have been indirectly applied to for help."
"You, Tom!" His father dropped back in his chair and laughed.
"I recommended the standard authors," said the son.
"Oh, I never supposed your PRUDENCE would be at fault, Tom!"
"But seriously," said the young man, generously smiling in sympathy with his father"s enjoyment, "they"re not unintelligent people. They are very quick, and they are shrewd and sensible."
"I have no doubt that some of the Sioux are so. But that is not saying that they are civilised. All civilisation comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilisation by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it.
But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise. Once we were softened, if not polished, by religion; but I suspect that the pulpit counts for much less now in civilising."
"They"re enormous devourers of newspapers, and theatre-goers; and they go a great deal to lectures. The Colonel prefers them with the stereopticon."
"They might get a something in that way," said the elder thoughtfully.
"Yes, I suppose one must take those things into account--especially the newspapers and the lectures. I doubt if the theatre is a factor in civilisation among us. I dare say it doesn"t deprave a great deal, but from what I"ve seen of it I should say that it was intellectually degrading. Perhaps they might get some sort of lift from it; I don"t know. Tom!" he added, after a moment"s reflection. "I really think I ought to see this patron of yours. Don"t you think it would be rather decent in me to make his acquaintance?"
"Well, if you have the fancy, sir," said the young man. "But there"s no sort of obligation. Colonel Lapham would be the last man in the world to want to give our relation any sort of social character. The meeting will come about in the natural course of things."
"Ah, I didn"t intend to propose anything immediate," said the father.
"One can"t do anything in the summer, and I should prefer your mother"s superintendence. Still, I can"t rid myself of the idea of a dinner.
It appears to me that there ought to be a dinner."
"Oh, pray don"t feel that there"s any necessity."
"Well," said the elder, with easy resignation, "there"s at least no hurry."
"There is one thing I don"t like," said Lapham, in the course of one of those talks which came up between his wife and himself concerning Corey, "or at least I don"t understand it; and that"s the way his father behaves. I don"t want to force myself on any man; but it seems to me pretty queer the way he holds off. I should think he would take enough interest in his son to want to know something about his business. What is he afraid of?" demanded Lapham angrily. "Does he think I"m going to jump at a chance to get in with him, if he gives me one? He"s mightily mistaken if he does. I don"t want to know him."
"Silas," said his wife, making a wife"s free version of her husband"s words, and replying to their spirit rather than their letter, "I hope you never said a word to Mr. Corey to let him know the way you feel."
"I never mentioned his father to him!" roared the Colonel. "That"s the way I feel about it!"