CHAPTER IX

That same evening the Philosopher took it into his head to be uncommonly disagreeable and ill-mannered. He found fault with everything, even with his dinner (which he had neither provided nor paid for) and he was judicially severe on his host for allowing himself to be “done,” as he put it, by his tradesmen.

“Call this mutton!” he said, viciously chopping at the meat on his plate. “It’s leather!--and old leather too! No wonder you’ve got the gout!--you’re eating gout now! You’ve got a cook, I suppose, and she ought to be ashamed of herself for taking such mutton into the house--she doesn’t know her business--”

The Sentimentalist interrupted him. Her cheeks were flushed with indignation and embarrassment.

“I am the one to blame,” she said, coldly. “I am alone responsible for the housekeeping. One cannot always command perfection. But please do not irritate Dad--he is easily upset--”

“Upset? I should think so!” snorted the Philosopher. “He’s got to pay for this beastly mutton!”

For one flashing second the blue eyes of his hostess swept over him in a glance of immeasurable scorn. Then she rose from table and left the room. Outside the door she met the parlourmaid.

“Well, I never, Miss!” observed that young woman. “If your Pa were in his ’e’lth he ought to order that old curmudgeon out of the house! Call _’im_ a friend! The cheek of ’im!”

The Sentimentalist could not answer. As mistress of the house she smarted under the rudeness this “clever” man had inflicted upon her at her own table. If the mutton was tough, she felt that he considered the fault to be hers, though she, poor little woman, was neither the butcher nor the cook. Moreover, the bad manners displayed in finding fault with the food provided at a hospitable board on which he had “sponged” for weeks together, proved, to her regret that though he might be a distinguished University “light of learning,” he was not a gentleman. This reflection calmed the hurry of her nerves--she re-entered the dining-room and resumed her place, ignoring the quizzical and enquiring look of the Philosopher as she did so.

“What did you go out of the room like that for?” grumbled her father. “Anything important?”

She smiled.

“Yes--important to me. I had an order to give.”

“Oh! Couldn’t you have given it here?”

“No.”

Silence followed.

The Philosopher became aware that she was “queening” it. He tried to start a subject of conversation--but his efforts fell flat. She neither looked at him nor seemed to hear him. He therefore addressed himself solely to his host, who replied somewhat disjointedly to his remarks. Both men were made distinctly uncomfortable by the quiet air of sovereign indifference maintained in the attitude and expression of the charming mistress of the house, and though he was as adamant in his own egoism the Philosopher for once wished he had controlled his emotions concerning tough mutton.

Dessert and coffee served, the Sentimentalist left the “gentlemen” to themselves, and, retiring to her own room began to think, and to wonder how long the Philosopher like another “Old Man of the Sea” purposed riding on the back of her little household.

“It seems very hard!” she mused. “I can’t imagine why Dad finds him so necessary!--or why that awful book should be compiled at all!”

Then she looked back to the time when the Philosopher had been first invited to come and stay--how ardently she had looked forward to meeting this “clever” man,--how she had pictured the charming and intellectual talks they might have together,--what a friend he would be to “Dad”--such a brilliant, learned and--yes!--surely kind-hearted man! For the Sentimentalist had a very erroneous notion fixed in her little head,--and this was that men who were rich in knowledge must be likewise rich in heart; because having learnt many things they would be sure to have wise tolerance and pity for the mistakes and follies of the ignorant,--so she thought. She was wrong of course--and she had to discover the sad fact that many so-called “great” men are amazingly small of character and petty in disposition. She blushed for very shame now as she remembered that she had _almost_--not quite!--but almost imagined herself growing attached to the Philosopher--“Yes!” she said to her own soul, indignantly--“I actually did come near loving him for a day or two!--when he was nice--and he _can_ be nice when he likes!--and of course I _felt_ he was trying to make love to me!--and I thought it such an _honour_! But, oh!”--here she gave herself a little shake--“_What_ an awful, awful husband he would make!--what tempers he would have!--and what nasty sarcastical things he would say if he felt like saying them! He wouldn’t care how he hurt one!--no, not he! He _likes_ to hurt people--positively _enjoys_ it!”

She gave herself another little shake,--then murmured irrelevantly,--

“Poor Jack!”

A sigh escaped her, and she went on talking to herself.

“Poor Jack! He’s not clever--no!--he often says the stupidest things!--but--ah!--he wouldn’t hurt any one for all the world! I think--yes, I’m sure!--I’d rather have a kind husband than a clever one!”

She lost herself in meditation for a while. All at once she heard a tap at her door.

“Come in!” she said.

And the Philosopher made his appearance.

“Where’s my pipe?” he asked.

Amazed at his cool effrontery she looked at him, hardly knowing whether to laugh, or to order him out of the room.

“Come, come!” he went on testily. “You know where everything is in the house and if anything is mislaid you can generally find it. I’ve lost my pipe--it’s not in my coat pocket and I _don’t_ think I left it on the seat by the river this afternoon--I _might_ have done so--”

“Perhaps you had better go and look,” she said, frigidly. “I believe there’s a moon.”

“Or I can take a lantern,” he replied. “But do you mean to say you haven’t seen it?”

“I certainly have _not_!”

“You are generally so kind!” he mumbled, in querulous tones. “Whenever you see it lying about you put it where I can find it--”

“But I haven’t seen it lying about this time,” she said. “You had better ask the servants.”

He stood on the threshold peering into the room.

“You have a nice little bower here,” he remarked, condescendingly. “Is this where you play at housekeeping and settle domestic quarrels?”

She made no answer.

“I see you are on your high horse!” he went on. “A tall and stalking quadruped! Can’t I assist you to alight?”

“I don’t know what you mean!” she said, looking full at him. “Please explain!”

“You know very well what I mean,” he proceeded affably. “You resent my recent observations on tough mutton for dinner. And you have mounted your high horse accordingly.”

She bit her lips to avoid laughing. He was so absolute, so obstinate in his own view of every incident, however trifling!

“I admit,” he went on, “that I was not polite. I might have expressed myself less bluntly. I also admit that I was conscious of considerable irritation. I--I apologise!”

She made a slight deprecating movement of her hand.

“Please say nothing more about it!” and her voice though soft, was very cold in tone. “I wish to forget the incident.”

He leaned against the doorpost in a drooping and dejected attitude.

“But you accept my apology?”

“Oh, certainly!”

There was a pause.

“I wish,” he then said, mournfully, “I wish I could find my pipe!”

The mirthful side of her disposition was touched, and she laughed,--a bright little laugh like that of a happy child. The Philosopher straightened himself.

“That’s right!” he said, approvingly. “I like to hear you laugh! So much better than prancing on your high horse!”

She laughed again.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “For such a learned man, you are really very funny!”

“I hope so!” he answered. “Though ‘funny’ is scarcely the word--‘amusing’ would be more accurate. Learned men _ought_ to be amusing; if they are not so they are invariably dull. Now I am never dull. My worst enemy could not accuse me of dulness,--if I had a wife she would find me an amusing husband.”

“Really!”

The Sentimentalist’s blue eyes were still twinkling with merriment.

“Yes,--really. And that is a great thing--for husbands, like wives, too often become monotonous. I wish”--here his voice sank again to plaintiveness--“I do wish I could find my pipe! Your father wants a game of billiards--”

“Where did you last have the pipe?” and the Sentimentalist rose from her chair and prepared to leave the room on a search for the mislaid “briar,” which was what the Philosopher wanted. “Have you looked in the pocket of your overcoat?”

“No,” here the Philosopher laid a detaining hand on her arm; “but I remember I had the overcoat on this morning when I met you and that young man in khaki. And you are not on your high horse any more?”

She drew herself gently away.

“No.”

She went towards the billiard-room. He followed slowly, with a sense that he had been worsted somehow in a mutual clashing of tempers, but in what way he could not quite determine. But she was not a “plum” to be easily gathered.

The most casual glance here and there sufficed to locate the missing pipe; it was on a table in the hall. One might have imagined that the Philosopher had purposely left it there. When it was handed to him he accepted it dubiously as though it had belonged to somebody else. He prodded the ash in its bowl with his little finger and looked at the Sentimentalist.

“You’re coming, aren’t you?” he queried.

“Into the billiard-room? I think not,” she replied. “The game doesn’t interest me.”

“A pity it doesn’t,” he retorted. “Sureness of eye, skill of hand,--these are things a woman should learn.”

“No doubt!” and with this brief response she moved away.

The Philosopher, still prodding his pipe, ruminated. It would never do!--he said within himself--_she_ would never do! As a wife she would be “impossible.” It never occurred to him to think that as a husband he might equally be “impossible.” And yet--she was really very attractive! And she would have money:--and the comfortable old manor house would be hers. He pictured himself settled for life--waited upon by a charming woman, warming his feet by the great log-fire, with nothing to do but write an occasional ponderous essay or article for one of the heavy reviews, just to keep up the press-clique reputation he had managed to obtain through his club acquaintances.

“I’ll try if I can make a dash for it,” he thought. “Give her one or two days to get over the departure of that fool of a young man Jack--and then I’ll see what can be done.”

He strolled into the billiard-room where his host was impatiently awaiting him, and very soon the monotonous click-clack of the billiard balls was the only sound that disturbed the silence.

Some mornings later a little old gentleman in a brown frieze suit called to see the Sentimentalist, who welcomed him with a frank delight to which he was not commonly accustomed.

“It’s because I’m Jack’s father!” he said, inwardly, with a chuckle--and he was right. Jack’s father! That was it! The Sentimentalist had never shown herself to better advantage--her eyes had never sparkled more brightly or her smile been more winning than for this wizened old personage who was reported to be the hardest, most close-fisted curmudgeon alive.

“Well!” he said, after the first ordinary greetings were over. “Jack went off all right--as chirpy as a cricket!”

“Yes? I’m so glad!” murmured the Sentimentalist. “I know he feels he is doing the right thing!”

“Well!” and the ejaculation was repeated again with a strong American drawl. “It may be so! _I_ don’t know! He does what he likes so long as he don’t spend much money--and the army has taken him off my hands for the present, which is all to the good. Boys like fighting, and I s’pose he’ll get some!”

The Sentimentalist said nothing. She had known Jack’s father intermittently for some months, and she was aware that his disposition seemed to be more curious than kindly. And while she kept silence, his small keen eyes studied her critically, and the shadow of a smile lurked under his fuzzy white moustache.

“How is the Papa?” he enquired.

“About the same,” she answered, cheerfully. “Rather gouty, and always busy with his book.”

“Oh! And is the old chap with him still?”

“You mean the Philosopher? Oh, yes! He is here--but I believe he’s going to Oxford next week for--for a while.”

“Only for a while? Why don’t he stay there?”

“Well, you see he’s a great help to father--”

“Yes--yes! Jack told me. But the book will be finished some time, won’t it?--say a month before the Judgment Day?”

She laughed.

“Oh, I hope so! But of course it’s heavy work, and takes a lot of time and patience--”

“Wasted labour!” growled Jack’s father. “Like all the great useless books packed up in big libraries; nobody reads them except a few old curiosity hunters, and nobody wants to read them either--”

“As reference books,” suggested the Sentimentalist, “they are perhaps necessary. You see”--and she sighed--“people cannot live on romance and poetry.”

“No, they can’t, but lots of them try to!” and the old gentleman treated her to a very wide smile and very narrow wink. “You, for instance--_you_ live on romance and poetry!”

Her blue eyes filled with amazement.

“I? Oh, no! Indeed, no! I like to think of beautiful things more than of ugly ones--that’s all!”

“I’m afraid your thoughts run in a mistaken direction,” said Jack’s father, rubbing his nose violently with a multi-coloured silk handkerchief. “Beautiful things are rare,--ugly things are of every day. Look at me for instance! I’m an ugly thing--”

She made a pretty gesture of smiling protest.

“I am!” he persisted. “But that Oxford chap is uglier!”

She laughed outright--then made a warning sign with a small uplifted finger, as just then the Philosopher strolled into the room. Jack’s father eyed him up and down.

“Good-morning, sir!” he said.

“Good-morning!” returned the Philosopher, condescendingly. “I think I saw you engaged in the gentle piscatorial art during the summer,--in short, fishing from a boat on the river--but I have not the pleasure--”

The Sentimentalist hastened to explain. He was the father of Jack. Oh, indeed! That was it? This little, lean, gimlet-eyed old man was Jack’s father! The Philosopher became cheerful--almost jocose.

“I congratulate you,” he said, “on the departure of your son for France. It must be very gratifying to you!”

“It is!” and the sharp American glance “sized him up” as it were in a second. “He’s my only--and I’m glad he’s got grit in him.”

The Philosopher winced. The expression “got grit” wounded his sensitive ears. It was so rough--so unscholarly.

“Grit,” he remarked suavely, “I suppose implies the spirit which impels a man to fight for a country not his own and to kill as many men as he can of a nation which has never done him any personal harm.”

“You can put it that way,” said Jack’s father, “if you like! There’s all sorts of ways of saying a thing--and that’s _your_ way.”

He gave vent to a sound between a chuckle and a snort. It might have meant amusement or contempt, or both.

The Philosopher eyed him meditatively.

“Yes, that is my way,” he agreed. “I confess I have no sympathy with the war fever. I dislike sheep tendencies in men. I do not admire their blind obedience to the order of a possibly stupid government. It shows that there is no originality of thought or character among them. A few bold and independent men could stop war altogether.”

“Well, I differ from you, sir,” said Jack’s father. “I don’t think all the saints that were ever calendared could prevent war. Why, everything in nature fights, from birth to death! It’s all a battle. Birds, beasts, insects,--even trees fight for room to expand. A good struggle against wind and tide makes the voyage worth while.”

The Sentimentalist smiled.

“I think so too!” she gently ventured to say. “Life would be so dull and monotonous without some sort of contest and opposition.”

The Philosopher bent an indulgent glance upon her.

“_You_ can afford to say that because you have never had either contest or opposition,” he remarked, pleasantly. “You are a little lady accustomed to have her own way in everything. And yet, you do not find it dull--or monotonous! As long as the roses bloom and the butterflies dance, you will be perfectly satisfied!”

His voice was quite musical,--his expression kind--and Jack’s father began almost to like him. Certainly the Philosopher had his good points like other people, though they were not often apparent. The conversation now took another turn with the entrance of the master of the house,--the author of “The Deterioration of Language Invariably Perceived”--who very soon mounted on his hobby-horse and was not altogether uninteresting in his discourse.

“You Americans,” he said, addressing Jack’s father, “are not nearly so much to blame as we are in the spoiling of the English language. You often use, quite unconsciously, very good old English words and expressions which were common in Tudor times and are now fallen into oblivion. But we are at one in the general crime of slang. The vulgar exclamation ‘ripping’ uttered by men and women alike is a disgrace to speech. Some person writing ‘society’ twaddle in one of the pictorials, uses the lowest slang as profusely as a farm labourer scatters manure,--creating a positive stink in the nostrils of any lover of good English--yet she--it is a woman of course!--is admired for her ‘style’! ‘Style’!” and the old gentleman grunted his contempt. “‘Style’ perished with Addison and Macaulay. If my daughter dared to use the word ‘ripping’ in my presence I’d--I’d disown her!”

And, pulling out a red handkerchief, he rubbed his nose violently, while the Sentimentalist laughingly put her arm round him.

“Would you, Dad?” she asked. “Really and truly?”

He peered at her fair face and tender eyes, with a relenting smile.

“Well, perhaps not _quite_” he admitted. “But nearly!”

The Philosopher looked on and listened. He thought the Sentimentalist charming in her pretty attitude of coaxing tolerance for her father,--he wished she would put her arm round _his_ neck in the same sort of way. But she never would--of that he felt pretty sure! And it was all the fault of that confounded Jack!--or was it the affair of the mutton? He was not clear as to which obstacle had arisen in the way of his very dilatory wooing--but he found himself considering that after all there might be a certain satisfaction in “caring about some one”--as his club friend had once suggested, or rather, having some one to care about yourself. He withdrew his interest from the general conversation as was his habit when he was not the centre of it, and went to a corner table where he pretended to write a letter. And he was surprised and not very pleased to hear the lively talk and laughter which ensued on his retreat. Even the gouty author of “The Deterioration of Language” made merry! Jack’s father told good stories and evidently had the keenest sense of humour. The old gentleman stayed a considerable time, and when ready to go, asked the Sentimentalist to walk home with him, to which proposition she readily assented. They left the room together, having apparently forgotten all about the Philosopher or his presence in the room. This was somewhat galling; especially as his host seemed likewise to have forgotten him, for _he_ trotted slowly away back to his library, whistling as he went. An uncomfortable sense of emptiness was in the air,--and just for once in his self-absorbed existence the Philosopher felt he was “not wanted.” He was mentally placed outside the gates of a little family paradise where he plainly saw a notice put up--“No Philosophers need apply.” And he found himself growing inwardly sad and angry. Sitting down by the cheerful log fire he began to ask questions of his intellectual _ego_,--as, for example, did much learning add to the sum of human happiness? When one knew the scientific causes of every happening, did such knowledge make sorrow easier to bear, or life more tolerable? The answer, as certain leaders of the House of Commons would say, was in the negative. And yet, on the other hand, love, or what is called love, was, so the Philosopher asserted, only for very young people.

“Like a teddy-bear for a baby!” he mused, grimly. “And how soon the baby tires of the teddy-bear!”

Comfort,--physical and material comfort in life--that was, in his opinion, the chief thing to aim at.

“And I doubt--I very much doubt,” he thought, “whether she”--here he alluded to the Sentimentalist--“would be a comfort. She would more likely be a worry and an embarrassment. She is charming, but erratic. She has ideals--and they are absurd. She has feelings--equally absurd. She would shed tears if her husband forgot to kiss her. More absurd than absurdity itself! She would resent neglect. And I believe she has a temper. Now a wife, to be satisfactory, should be docile and submissive--she should keep her ‘feelings’ in the background, attend to her household and be--well, yes!--a well-trained automaton. Then there would be peace, and a well-ordered establishment, which I should not object to. But a woman such as She is, with eyes that smile one moment and weep the next, and emotions as changeful as the wind--she would be a handful to manage!--if she _could_ be managed, which is open to serious question! If that young ass Jack comes home and marries her I shall be sorry for him!--yes, I shall be very sorry for him! But”--here he settled himself more comfortably in his chair--“in all probability he will not survive! He is just the kind of headstrong fool to make himself a target for the German guns!”

And with this reflection, which moved him to smile quite pleasantly, he composed himself for a quiet nap before luncheon.