"I rather think," he said at last, "it must be because they have too strong a faculty of criticism. You can't teach a man to be proud of his own work; that lies in his blood "; folding his arms across his breast, he heaved a sigh. Under the dark foliage, his eyes on the sunlight, he was the type of all those Englishmen who keep their spirits bright and wear their bodies out in the dark places of hard work. "You can't think," he said, showing his teeth in a smile, "how delightful it is to be at home! You learn to love the old country when you're away from it."Shelton often thought, afterwards; of this diagnosis of the vagabond, for he was always stumbling on instances of that power of subtle criticism which was the young foreigner's prime claim to be "a most awfully interesting" and perhaps a rather shocking person.
An old school-fellow of Shelton's and his wife were staying in the house, who offered to the eye the picture of a perfect domesticity.
Passionless and smiling, it was impossible to imagine they could ever have a difference. Shelton, whose bedroom was next to theirs, could hear them in the mornings talking in exactly the tones they used at lunch, and laughing the same laughs. Their life seemed to accord them perfect satisfaction; they were supplied with their convictions by Society just as, when at home, they were supplied with all the other necessaries of life by some co-operative stores. Their fairly handsome faces, with the fairly kind expressions, quickly and carefully regulated by a sense of compromise, began to worry him so much that when in the same room he would even read to avoid the need of looking at them. And yet they were kind--that is, fairly kind--and clean and quiet in the house, except when they laughed, which was often, and at things which made him want to howl as a dog howls at music.
"Mr. Shelton," Ferrand said one day, "I 'm not an amateur of marriage--never had the chance, as you may well suppose; but, in any case, you have some people in the house who would make me mark time before I went committing it. They seem the ideal young married people--don't quarrel, have perfect health, agree with everybody, go to church, have children--but I should like to hear what is beautiful in their life," and he grimaced. "It seems to me so ugly that I can only gasp. I would much rather they ill-treated each other, just to show they had the corner of a soul between them. If that is marriage, 'Dieu m'en garde!'"But Shelton did not answer; he was thinking deeply.
The saying of John Noble's, "He's really a most interesting person,"grew more and more upon his nerves; it seemed to describe the Dennant attitude towards this stranger within their gates. They treated him with a sort of wonder on the "don't touch" system, like an object in an exhibition. The restoration, however, of, his self-respect proceeded with success. For all the semblance of having grown too big for Shelton's clothes, for all his vividly burnt face, and the quick but guarded play of cynicism on his lips--he did much credit to his patrons. He had subdued his terror of a razor, and looked well in a suit of Shelton's flannels. For, after all, he had only been eight years exiled from middle-class gentility, and he had been a waiter half that time. But Shelton wished him at the devil. Not for his manners' sake--he was never tired of watching how subtly the vagabond adapted his conduct to the conduct of his hosts, while keeping up his critical detachment--but because that critical detachment was a constant spur to his own vision, compelling him to analyse the life into which, he had been born and was about to marry.
This process was disturbing; and to find out when it had commenced, he had to go back to his meeting with Ferrand on the journey up from Dover.
There was kindness in a hospitality which opened to so strange a bird; admitting the kindness, Shelton fell to analysing it. To himself, to people of his class, the use of kindness was a luxury, not significant of sacrifice, but productive of a pleasant feeling in the heart, such as massage will setup in the legs. "Everybody's kind," he thought; "the question is, What understanding is there, what real sympathy?" This problem gave him food for thought.
The progress, which Mrs. Dennant not unfrequently remarked upon, in Ferrand's conquest of his strange position, seemed to Shelton but a sign that he was getting what he could out of his sudden visit to green pastures; under the same circumstances, Shelton thought that he himself would do the same. He felt that the young foreigner was making a convenient bow to property, but he had more respect for the sarcastic smile on the lips of Ferrand's heart.
It was not long before the inevitable change came in the spirit of the situation; more and more was Shelton conscious of a quaint uneasiness in the very breathing of the household.
"Curious fellow you've got hold of there, Shelton," Mr. Dennant said to him during a game of croquet; " he 'll never do any good for himself, I'm afraid.""In one sense I'm afraid not," admitted Shelton.
