Part 21 (1/2)
There was a long silence.
”Did not O'Hara tell you to make no more efforts for my escape?” asked Hogarth.
”Who is O'Hara?”
”Why, the priest who escaped, instead of me, through the copse”.
”O'Hara was not the name he gave me; and no, he said nothing about that. I got him off to America, and only saw him twice. I thought him rather--But why didn't you escape youself?”
”I thought it improper”.
”But you did finally?”
”For a reason: you remember the a.s.sociation which I was forming to answer the question as to the cause of misery? Well, that question I have answered for myself in prison”.
”Really? Tell me!”
Hogarth absently took up a water-colour drawing from the table, and turned it round and round, leaning forward on a knee, as he told how the matter was. Meantime, he kept his eyes fixed upward upon Loveday's face, who stood before him.
In the midst of his talk Loveday scratched the top of his head, where the hair was rather thin, and said he, twisting round: ”Forgive me-let me ring for some brandy-and-soda--”
Hogarth stood briskly up.
”What I say, I can see, is not new to you?” said he.
”No, not new”, Loveday confessed: ”I believe that it is quite an ancient theory; there are even savage tribes whose land-tenure is not unlike what you advocate--the Basutos, for example”.
”And are these Basutos richer, happier, prettier fellows than average Englishmen?”
”Oh, beyond doubt. Don't suppose that I am gainsaying you: I am only showing you that the theory is not new--”
”But why do you persist in calling it a _theory?_ Is the fact that one and one make two a _theory?_”--Hogarth's brow growing every moment redder.
”What can one call it?”
”Call it what you like! But do you believe it?”
”It is quite possibly true; and now that you say it I believe it; but I have never seriously considered the matter.”
”Why not?”
”Because--I don't know. It is out of my line”.
”Your line! Yet you are a human being--”
”Well, partly, yes: say--a novelist”.
”Do not jest! It is incredible to me that you have written book after book, and knew of this divine thing, and did not cram your books with it!”