The Odd Women Part 21

'Of _that_ I have no doubt,' exclaimed the other, laughing. 'I see that you have refined your arguments.'

'Not my arguments only, I hope,' said Everard modestly. 'My time has been very ill spent if I haven't in some degree, refined my nature.'

'That sounds very well, Everard. But when it comes to degrees of self-indulgence--'

She paused and made a gesture of dissatisfaction.

'It comes to that, surely, with every man. But we certainly shall not agree on this subject. You stand at the social point of view; I am an individualist. You have the advantage of a tolerably consistent theory; whilst I have no theory at all, and am full of contradictions. The only thing clear to me is that I have a right to make the most of my life.'

'No matter at whose expense?'

'You are quite mistaken. My conscience is a tender one. I dread to do any one an injury. That has always been true of me, in spite of your sceptical look; and the tendency increases as I grow older. Let us have done with so unimportant a matter. Isn't Miss Nunn able to rejoin us?'

'She will come presently, I think.'

'How did you make this lady's acquaintance?'

Miss Barfoot explained the circ.u.mstances.

'She makes an impression,' resumed Everard. 'A strong character, of course. More decidedly one of the new women than you yourself--isn't she?'

'Oh, _I_ am a very old-fas.h.i.+oned woman. Women have thought as I do at any time in history. Miss Nunn has much more zeal for womanhood militant.'

'I should delight to talk with her. Really, you know, I am very strongly on your side.'

Miss Barfoot laughed.

'Oh, sophist! You despise women.'

'Why, yes, the great majority of women--the typical woman. All the more reason for my admiring the exceptions, and wis.h.i.+ng to see them become more common. You, undoubtedly, despise the average woman.'

'I despise no human being, Everard.'

'Oh, in a sense! But Miss Nunn, I feel sure, would agree with me.'

'I am very sure Miss Nunn wouldn't. She doesn't admire the feebler female, but that is very far from being at one with _your_ point of view, my cousin.'

Everard mused with a smile.

'I must get to understand her line of thought. You permit me to call upon you now and then?'

'Oh, whenever you like, in the evening. Except,' Miss Barfoot added, 'Wednesday evening. Then we are always engaged.'

'Summer holidays are unknown to you, I suppose?'

'Not altogether. I had mine a few weeks ago. Miss Nunn will be going away in a fortnight, I think.'

Just before ten o'clock, when Barfoot was talking of some acquaintances he had left in j.a.pan, Rhoda entered the room. She seemed little disposed for conversation, and Everard did not care to a.s.sail her taciturnity this evening. He talked on a little longer, observing her as she listened, and presently took an opportunity to rise for departure.

'Wednesday is the forbidden evening, is it not?' he said to his cousin.

'Yes, that is devoted to business.'

As soon as he had gone, the friends exchanged a look. Each understood the other as referring to this point of Wednesday evening, but neither made a remark. They were silent for some time. When Rhoda at length spoke it was in a tone of half-indifferent curiosity.

'You are sure you haven't exaggerated Mr. Barfoot's failings?'

The reply was delayed for a moment.

'I was a little indiscreet to speak of him at all. But no, I didn't exaggerate.'

'Curious,' mused the other dispa.s.sionately, as she stood with one foot on the fender. 'He hardly strikes one as that kind of man.

'Oh, he has certainly changed a great deal.'

Miss Barfoot went on to speak of her cousin's resolve to pursue no calling.

'His means are very modest. I feel rather guilty before him; his father bequeathed to me much of the money that would in the natural course have been Everard's. But he is quite superior to any feeling of grudge on that score.'

'Practically, his father disinherited him?'

'It amounted to that. From quite a child, Everard was at odds with his father. A strange thing, for in so many respects they resembled each other very closely. Physically, Everard is his father walking the earth again. In character, too, I think they must be very much alike. They couldn't talk about the simplest thing without disagreeing. My uncle had risen from the ranks but he disliked to be reminded of it. He disliked the commerce by which he made his fortune. His desire was to win social position; if baronetcies could be purchased in our time, he would have given a huge sum to acquire one. But he never distinguished himself, and one of the reasons was, no doubt, that he married too soon. I have heard him speak bitterly, and very indiscreetly, of early marriages; his wife was dead then, but every one knew what he meant.

Rhoda, when one thinks how often a woman is a clog upon a man's ambition, no wonder they regard us as they do.'

'Of course, women are always r.e.t.a.r.ding one thing or another. But men are intensely stupid not to have remedied that long ago.'

'He determined that his boys should be gentlemen. Tom, the elder, followed his wishes exactly; he was remarkably clever, but idleness spoilt him, and now he has made that ridiculous marriage--the end of poor Tom. Everard went to Eton, and the school had a remarkable effect upon him; it made him a furious Radical. Instead of imitating the young aristocrats he hated and scorned them. There must have been great force of originality in the boy. Of course I don't know whether any Etonians of his time preached Radicalism, but it seems unlikely. I think it was sheer vigour of character, and the strange desire to oppose his father in everything. From Eton he was of course to pa.s.s to Oxford, but at that stage came practical rebellion. No, said the boy; he wouldn't go to a university, to fill his head with useless learning; he had made up his mind to be an engineer. This was an astonishment to every one; engineering didn't seem at all the thing for him; he had very little ability in mathematics, and his bent had always been to liberal studies. But nothing could shake his idea. He had got it into his head that only some such work as engineering--something of a practical kind, that called for strength and craftsmans.h.i.+p--was worthy of a man with his opinions. He would rank with the cla.s.ses that keep the world going with their st.u.r.dy toil: that was how he spoke. And, after a great fight, he had his way. He left Eton to study civil engineering.'

Rhoda was listening with an amused smile.

'Then,' pursued her friend, 'came another display of firmness or obstinacy, whichever you like to call it. He soon found out that he had made a complete mistake. The studies didn't suit him at all, as others had foreseen. But he would have worked himself to death rather than confess his error; none of us knew how he was feeling till long after.

Engineering he had chosen, and an engineer he would be, cost him what effort it might. His father shouldn't triumph over him. And from the age of eighteen till nearly thirty he stuck to a profession which I am sure he loathed. By force of resolve he even got on to it, and reached a good position with the firm he worked for. Of course his father wouldn't a.s.sist him with money after he came of age; he had to make his way just like any young man who has no influence.'

'All this puts him in quite another light,' remarked Rhoda.

'Yes, it would be all very well, if there were no vices to add to the picture. I never experienced such a revulsion of feeling as the day when I learnt shameful things about Everard. You know, I always regarded him as a boy, and very much as if he had been my younger brother; then came the shock--a shock that had a great part in shaping my life thenceforward. Since, I have thought of him as I have spoken of him to you--as an ill.u.s.tration of evils we have to combat. A man of the world would tell you that I grossly magnified trifles; it is very likely that Everard was on a higher moral level than most men. But I shall never forgive him for destroying my faith in his honour and n.o.bility of feeling.'

Rhoda had a puzzled look.

'Perhaps even now you are unintentionally misleading me,' she said. 'I have supposed him an outrageous profligate.'

'He was vicious and cowardly--I can't say any more.'

'And that was the immediate cause of his father's leaving him poorly provided for?'

'It had much to do with it, I have no doubt.'

'I see. I imagined that he was cast out of all decent society.'