Part 8 (1/2)

”t.i.tyus” she thought was a very apt name for him, and she wondered if he would jump if the vulture suddenly gave a gnaw at his liver!

”You are an idealist, John,” said Mr. Carlyon. ”All this might have been of some use as a principle of propaganda before the franchise was so low, but now the mediocrity is our master--so of what use? If you talked so you would but preach to empty benches.”

”I will not do that--I will make them listen. My point is that everyone can rise if he wishes, but until he has done so in fact, there is no use in his pretending in words that he has. I would explain to them the reason of things. I could have agreed with the greatest Athenian democrats because their principle was one of sense. They had slaves to do the lowest offices who had no voice in public affairs, but here we let those who have no more education or comprehension than slaves have the same power as men who have spent their lives in studying the matter.

It is all unjust, and no one has the courage to tell them to their faces they are unfitted for the task.”

”It will be a grand stalking horse for your first essay in your const.i.tuency,” Cheiron said with his kindly twinkle of sarcasm. He loved to encourage John Derringham to talk.

But at that moment Demetrius brought the tea and Halcyone gravely began her task.

”Do you take it black like Mr. Carlyon?” she asked of the reclining guest.

He came back to the remembrance of her presence and glancing at her, murmured:

”Oh--ah, no--that is, yes--strong, only with cream and sugar. Thanks awfully.”

But Halcyone did not rise to hand it to him, so he was obliged to get up and take it from where she sat. She perceived then that though extremely thin he was lithe and well-shaped. And in spite of her unconquered prejudice, she was obliged to own she liked his steely gray hawk-like eyes and his fine, rather ascetic, clean-shaven face. He did not look at her specially. He may have taken in a small, pale visage and ma.s.ses of mouse-colored hair and slender legs--but nothing struck him particularly except her feet. As his eyes dropped to the ground he caught sight of them; they were singularly perfect feet. He admired points in man or beast--and when he had returned to his old place stretched out under the apple tree, he still glanced at them now and then; they satisfied his eye.

”What have you been doing in these days, Halcyone?” Mr. Carlyon asked.

”I have not seen you since Monday morning. Have you been getting into any mischief?”

Halcyone reluctantly admitted that she had not. There was, she explained, very little chance of any of an agreeable kind coming her way at La Sarthe Chase. She had been gardening with William--they had quite tidied the top terrace--and she had been reading French with Aunt Roberta, but the book was great nonsense.

Then she added that she had brought an invitation from the Aunts La Sarthe that Mr. Carlyon's guest should accompany him when he dined with them on the Sat.u.r.day. It had become the custom for him to partake of this repast on the same occasions that Mr. Miller did--once a month.

John Derringham frowned under his straw hat which he had pulled over his eyes. He had not come into the country to be dragged out to bucolic dinner parties. But upon some points he knew his old master was obdurate and from his firm acceptance of the invitation this appeared to be one of them.

Then Halcyone asked politely if he would have a second cup of tea, but he refused and again addressed Cheiron, ignoring her. Their conversation now ran into philosophical questions, some of them out of her depth, but much of the subject interested her deeply and she listened absorbed.

At last there was a pause and her fresh young voice asked:

”What, then, is the aim of philosophy--is it only words, or does it bring any good?”

And both men looked at her, staggered for a moment, and John Derringham burst into a ringing laugh.

”Upon my word, I don't know,” he said. ”It was invented so that the Master here and I should pull each other's theories to pieces; that evidently was its aim from the beginning of time. I do not know if it has any other good.”

”Everything is so very simple,” said Halcyone. ”To have to argue about it must be fatiguing.”

”You find things simple, do you?” asked John Derringham, now complacently roused to look at her. ”What are your rules of life then, let us hear, oh, Oracle!--we listen with respect!”

Halcyone reddened a little and a gleam grew in her wise eyes. She would have refused to reply, but looking at her revered master, she saw that he was awaiting her answer with an encouraging smile. So she thought a second and then said calmly, measuring her words: ”Things are what we make them, they have no power in themselves; they are as inanimate as this wood--” and she touched the table with her fine brown hand. ”It is we ourselves who give them activity. So it is our own faults if they are bad--they could just as easily be good. Is not that simple enough?”

”An example, please, G.o.ddess,” demanded John Derringham with a cynical smile.

”The dark is an example,” she went on quietly. ”People fill the dark with their own frightening images and fear it because they themselves have turned it into evil. The dark is as kind as the day.”

John Derringham laughed. He was amused at this precocious wisdom and he suddenly remembered that his old master had mentioned some clever child when writing to him first about the place, two months before. This was the creature, then, who was learning Greek. She had picked up these ideas, of course, out of some book and was showing off. Children should be snubbed and kept in their places: