“Why cannot you ask her as often as you want, if she can’t say words of refusal?” said Bumpus.
“You are so unmanly about Mrs. Merry, Dickie,” said Emily.
“I feel rather unmanly about her,” said Bumpus.
“I feel unmanly in asking her this,” said Herrick.
“You think it is unwomanly of me to ask you to,” said Emily. “But I have not the true courage that is womanly. It is being so much with men. But how you do realize the domestic problem, Nicholas! You are better than either Dickie or William at that. I think it must mean that you have the mixture of the feminine and masculine, known to be in genius. I feel so hopeful about your book.”
“Ah, Herrick, the time for our exposure gets near, doesn’t it?” said Bumpus.
“Yes, yes, it does,” said Herrick. “It does get near, indeed. And it will be something of an exposure for me. Because my book brings out really a new self in me, a self that I was hardly conscious was there, myself.”
“Yes, books do come out queerly in that way,” said Bumpus. “Now my book shows an old side of me; a young side, I might say, that I thought had been covered up for twenty years. I wonder if any of you will find my old self in it.”
“I suppose that is the difference between an author and an ordinary man,” said Emily. “Because of course there must be some difference. An author does things from a new self or an old self, and an ordinary man just from his ordinary self, as if he were doing an ordinary thing, which of course he is. I am glad that Nicholas’ is the new self, because his early one might not make a book quite suitable for a schoolmaster, for a schoolmaster to write.”
“Do you remember, how Herrick once said he could live without Emily?” said Masson, as he and Bumpus left the house.
“William,” said Bumpus, “you know there is a thing I will do for you, if you want it done? If you want to marry Emily, it could be easily managed about Herrick. You might have to live with him. That would be easy. Or he could live with you. That would be easy. You are a rich man. I mean, I would bring the thing to Emily, if you would find less surface trouble so. I could bring her mind in turn to you. I would do my best, I would do well, between you.”
“Richard, I will say it to you,” said Masson. “I am grateful enough, to understand you. I know what you think it might mean of change for you. I would accept it, if I needed it. I would take anything from you. But if I had wished to marry Emily, if she had wished to marry me; I will say the first; it would have been enough; I should have asked her many years ago. I should not have thought of Herrick, to be plain. I should ask her now, if the desire came to me. I should ask her myself, like the ordinary man I am.”
“Of course you would,” said Bumpus. “I see now. I never saw before. But I meant well. Oh, but I believe you know how well I meant.”
“I would take anything from you,” said Masson. “But I would have you understand my feeling for Emily. I have all you supposed I might have for her. And I hope she has something for me. I hope and believe it. For it means a great thing in my life for me. But you are the more necessary to me, as her brother is to her. That is not to say that you and he are exactly first to either of us. Do you see?”
“Yes,” said Bumpus. “I think I have always seen.”
V
“Are the boys coming?” said the Reverend Henry Bentley.
“They are out of their room, Father,” said his daughter.
“I asked you if they were coming.”
“They are out of their room, Father. We are all a little late this morning.”
“I know we are late. I asked you if they were coming.”
Mr. Bentley rang the bell, and took his seat. He was an upright, white-haired man in the fifties. He had been a parson and a younger son, and had come later into the family estate.
Two boys of twelve and thirteen edged into the room, with the words, “Good morning, Father.”
Mr. Bentley simply turned his eyes on them; and the younger showed the behaviour natural to continual gratitude, by vaguely capering.
The daughter was a tall young woman of thirty, with a pointed chin, and a small, compressed, peaceful mouth. She was the child of Mr. Bentley by an earlier marriage. He was a widower for the second time.
“I am sorry we are late, Father.”
Mr. Bentley did not look at her. He bowed his head over the breakfast with an air of not sharing the general thanklessness. Delia raised her head a little after the rest. There was a suggestion about her of remembering their being late.
“We shall have a windy walk to the college chapel,” said Mr. Bentley.
“What did you say, Father?” said Delia.
Mr. Bentley did not answer.
“We shall have a windy walk to the chapel,” he presently said, in a still lower voice.
“What did you say, Father?”
Mr. Bentley did not answer.
“Would you like lunch at one or half-past, Father?”
Mr. Bentley was silent.
“Would you like lunch at one or half-past, Father?”
Mr. Bentley was silent.
“Father, I think you heard me.”
“Since it is the fashion this morning to be deaf, I may as well follow it. I might ask how many people had heard me.”
“How late you were home last night, Father! Was the train delayed?”
“I walked from the station. The train was not delayed. It is not a distance one can walk in a minute.”
“You are so good in those ways,
