Part 19 (1/2)

Sam Gwent gave a short cough, expressing incredulity.

”Well! Was.h.i.+ngton thought you were the favoured 'catch' and envied your luck! Certainly she showed a great preference for you--”

”Can't you talk of something else?” interposed Seaton, impatiently.

Gwent gave him an amused side-glance.

”Why, of course I can!” he responded--”But I thought I'd tell you about Jack--”

”I'm sorry!” said Seaton, hastily, conscious that he had been lacking in sympathy--”He was your heir, I believe?”

”Yes,--he might have been, had he kept a bit straighter”--said Gwent--”But heirs are no good anywhere or anyhow. They only spend what they inherit and waste the honest work of a life-time. Is that your prize palace?”

He pointed to the hut which they had almost reached.

”That's it!” answered Seaton--”And I prefer it to any palace ever built. No servants, no furniture, no useless lumber--just a place to live in--enough for any man.”

”A tub was enough for Diogenes”--commented Gwent--”If we all lived in his way or your way it would be a poor look-out for trade! However, I presume you'll escape taxation here!”

Seaton made no reply, but led the way into his dwelling, offering his visitor a chair.

”I hope you've had breakfast”--he said--”For I haven't any to give you.

You can have a gla.s.s of milk if you like?”

Gwent made a wry face.

”I'm not a good subject for primitive nourishment”--he said--”I've been weaned too long for it to agree with me!”

He sat down. His eyes were at once attracted by the bowl of restless fluid on the table.

”What's that?” he asked.

Roger Seaton smiled enigmatically.

”Only a trifle”--he answered--”Just health! It's a sort of talisman;--germ-proof, dust-proof, disease-proof! No microbe of mischief, however infinitesimal, can exist near it, and a few drops, taken into the system, revivify the whole.”

”If that's so, your fortune's made”--said Gwent, ”Give your discovery, or recipe, or whatever it is, to the world---”

”To keep the world alive? No, thank you!” And the look of dark scorn on Seaton's face was astonis.h.i.+ng in its almost satanic expression--”That is precisely what I wish to avoid! The world is over-ripe and over-rotten,--and it is over-crowded with a festering humanity that is INhuman, and worse than b.e.s.t.i.a.l in its furious grappling for self and greed. One remedy for the evil would be that no children should be born in it for the next thirty or forty years--the relief would be incalculable,--a monstrous burden would be lifted, and there would be some chance of betterment,--but as this can never be, other remedies must be sought and found. It's pure hypocrisy to talk of love for children, when every day we read of mothers selling their offspring for so much cash down,--lately in China during a spell of famine parents killed their daughters like young calves, for food. Ugly facts like these have to be looked in the face--it's no use putting them behind one's back, and murmuring beautiful lies about 'mother-love' and such nonsense. As for the old Mosaic commandment 'Honour thy father and mother'--it's ordinary newspaper reading to hear of boys and girls attacking and murdering their parents for the sake of a few dollars.”

”You've got the ugly facts by heart”--said Gwent slowly--”But there's another and more cheerful outlook--if you choose to consider it.

Newspaper reading always gives the worst and dirtiest side of everything--it wouldn't be newspaper stuff if it was clean. Newspapers remind me of the rotting heaps in gardens--all the rubbish piled together till the smell becomes a nuisance--then a good burning takes place of the whole collection and it makes a sort of fourth-rate manure.” He paused a moment--then went on--

”I'm not given to sentiment, but I dare say there are still a few folks who love each other in this world,--and it's good to know of when they do. My sister”--he paused again, as if something stuck in his throat; ”My sister loved her boy,--Jack. His death has driven her silly for the time--doctors say she will recover--that it's only 'shock.' 'Shock' is answerable for a good many tragedies since the European war.”

Seaton moved impatiently, but said nothing,

”You're a bit on the fidgets”--resumed Gwent, placidly--”You want me to come to business--and I will. May I smoke?”