"I say, that"s your governor. I"ll go and talk to him."
He went without another look at her. She steadied herself with the tips of her fingers on the tea-table, in order not to swoon. She knew she wouldn"t swoon; she only felt like it, or like dying. But all she could do was limply to pour herself out an extra cup of tea and drink it.
In the library Ashley was taking heart of grace. He had come to ask advice, but he was really pointing out the things that were in his favor. He repeated Drusilla"s summing-up of them almost word for word.
"You see, as far as that goes, I"ve everything my own way. No question will be raised unless I raise it. The fellow has taken himself off; the Marquise has most generally a.s.sumed the family liabilities; and Olivia is ready to come to church with me and be married on the first convenient day. I should be satisfied with that, now shouldn"t I?"
The old man nodded. "Your difficulties do seem to have been smoothed out."
He sat, fitting the tips of his fingers together and swinging his leg, in his desk-chair. The light of the green-shaded desk-lamp alone lit up the room. In the semi-obscurity porcelains and potteries gleamed like crystals in a cave. Ashley paced the floor, emerging from minute to minute out of the gloom into the radiance of the lamp.
"I"m not called on to go poking behind things to see what"s there, now am I?"
"Not in the least."
"I"m willing to consider every one, and I think I do. But there are limits, by Jove! Now, really?"
"The minute we recognize limits it"s our duty not to go beyond them.
It"s thus far and no farther--for the man who knows the stretch of his tether, at any rate. The trouble with Peter is that his tether is elastic. It"ll spin out as far as he sees the need to go. For the rest of us there are limits, as you say; but about him there"s something--something you might call limitless."
Ashley rounded sharply. "You mean he"s so big that no one can be bigger."
"Not exactly. I mean that very few of us _need_ to be as big as that.
It"s all very well for him; but most of us have to keep within the measure of our own capacity."
"And sit down under him, while he looms up into G.o.d knows where?"
"Well, wouldn"t that be your idea?"
"Can"t say that it is. My idea is that when I take my rights and keep them, I"m as big as any one."
"Quite so; as big as any one--who takes his rights and keeps them.
That"s very true."
Ashley stopped, one hand behind him, the other supporting him as he leaned on the desk. "And that"s what I propose to do," he said, aggressively.
"It"s a very high ideal."
"I propose to accept the status quo without asking any more questions."
"I should think that would be a very good plan. A wise man--one of the wisest--wrote, apropos of well-disposed people who were seeking a standard of conduct: "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." I should think you"d have every reason for that kind of self-approval."
"Do you mean that, sir? or are you--trying it on?"
"I"m certainly not trying it on. The man who takes his rights and keeps them can be amply justified. If there"s a counsel of perfection that goes beyond that standard--well, it isn"t given to all men to receive it."
"Then you think it isn"t given to me. You"d put me down as a good sort of chap who comes in second best."
"What makes you think I should do that?"
"Because--because--hang it all! If I let this fellow keep ahead of me--why, I _should_ come in second best."
"You say _keep_ ahead of me. Do you think he"s ahead of you now?"
Ashley straightened himself. He looked uncomfortable. "He"s got a pull, by Jove! He made that journey to France--and cracked me up to the Marquise--and wheedled her round--when all the while he must have known that he was hammering nails into his own coffin. He did it, too, after I"d insulted him and we"d had a row."
"Oh, that"s nothing. To a fellow like him that sort of thing comes easy."
"It wouldn"t come easy to me, by Jove!"
"Then it would be all the more to your credit, if you ever did anything of the kind."
The Englishman bounded away. Once more he began to pace the floor restlessly. The old man took his pipe from a tray, and his tobacco-pouch from a drawer. Having filled the bowl, with meditative leisure he looked round for a match. "Got a light?"
Ashley struck a vesta on the edge of his match-box and applied it to the old man"s pipe.
"Should you say," he asked, while doing it, "that I ought to attempt anything in that line?"
"Certainly not--unless you want to--to get ahead."
"I don"t want to stay behind."
"Then, it"s for you to judge, my son."
There was something like an affectionate stress on the two concluding monosyllables. Ashley backed off, out of the lamplight.
"It"s this way," he explained, stammeringly; "I"m a British officer and gentleman. I"m a little more than that--since I"m a V.C. man--and a fellow--dash it all, I might as well say it!--I"m a fellow they"ve got their eye on--in the line of high office, don"t you know? And I can"t--I simply _can"t_--let a chap like that make me a present of all his chances--"
"Did he have any?"
Ashley hesitated. "Before G.o.d, sir, I don"t know--but I"m inclined to think--he had. If so, I suppose they"re of as much value to him as mine to me."
"But not of any more."
He hesitated again. "I don"t know about that. Perhaps they are. The Lord knows I don"t say that lightly, for mine are--Well, we needn"t go into that. But I"ve got a good deal in my life, and I don"t imagine that he, poor devil--"
"Oh, don"t worry. A rich soil is never barren. When nothing is planted in it, Nature uses it for flowers."
Ashley answered restively. "I see, sir, your sympathies are all on his side."
"Not at all. Quite the contrary. My certainties are on his side. My sympathies are on yours."
"Because you think I need them."
"Because I think you may."
"In case I--"