“It wasn’t my fault, Arthur.”
“There has been no fault but my own. I went in for the running and got distanced. That’s simply all about it, and there’s no more to be said.”
“You ain’t surprised that I should wish to see you.”
“I’m ever so much obliged. I think it’s very kind of you.”
“I can’t go in for a new life as you can. I can’t take up politics and Parliament. It’s too late for me.”
“I’m going to. There’s a Bill coming on this very night that I’m interested about. You mustn’t be angry if I rush off a little before ten. We are going to lend money to the parishes on the security of the rates for draining bits of common land. Then we shall sell the land and endow the unions, so as to lessen the poor rates, and increase the cereal products of the country. We think we can bring 300,000 acres under the plough in three years, which now produce almost nothing, and in five years would pay all the expenses. Putting the value of the land at £25 an acre, which is low, we shall have created property to the value of seven millions and a half. That’s something, you know.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Wharton, who felt himself quite unable to follow with any interest the aspirations of the young legislator.
“Of course it’s complicated,” continued Arthur, “but when you come to look into it it comes out clear enough. It is one of the instances of the omnipotence of capital. Parliament can do such a thing, not because it has any creative power of its own, but because it has the command of unlimited capital.” Mr. Wharton looked at him, sighing inwardly as he reflected that unrequited love should have brought a clearheaded young barrister into mists so thick and labyrinths so mazy as these. “A very good beefsteak indeed,” said Arthur. “I don’t know when I ate a better one. Thank you, no;—I’ll stick to the claret.” Mr. Wharton had offered him Madeira. “Claret and brown meat always go well together. Pancake! I don’t object to a pancake. A pancake’s a very good thing. Now would you believe it, sir; they can’t make a pancake at the House.”
“And yet they sometimes fall very flat too,” said the lawyer, making a real lawyer’s joke.
“It’s all in the mixing, sir,” said Arthur, carrying it on. “We’ve mixture enough just at present, but it isn’t of the proper sort;—too much of the flour, and not enough of the egg.”
But Mr. Wharton had still something to say, though he hardly knew how to say it. “You must come and see us in the Square after a bit.”
“Oh;—of course.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to dine there today, because I thought we should be less melancholy here;—but you mustn’t cut us altogether. You haven’t seen Everett since you’ve been in town?”
“No, sir. I believe he lives a good deal—a good deal with—Mr. Lopez. There was a little row down at Silverbridge. Of course it will wear off, but just at present his lines and my lines don’t converge.”
“I’m very unhappy about him, Arthur.”
“There’s nothing the matter?”
“My girl has married that man. I’ve nothing to say against him;—but of course it wasn’t to my taste; and I feel it as a separation. And now Everett has quarrelled with me.”
“Quarrelled with you!”
Then the father told the story as well as he knew how. His son had lost some money, and he had called his son a gambler;—and consequently his son would not come near him. “It is bad to lose them both, Arthur.”
“That is so unlike Everett.”
“It seems to me that everybody has changed—except myself. Who would have dreamed that she would have married that man? Not that I have anything to say against him except that he was not of our sort. He has been very good about Everett, and is very good about him. But Everett will not come to me unless I—withdraw the word;—say that I was wrong to call him a gambler. That is a proposition that no son should make to a father.”
“It is very unlike Everett,” repeated the other. “Has he written to that effect?”
“He has not written a word.”
“Why don’t you see him yourself, and have it out with him?”
“Am I to go to that club after him?” said the father.
“Write to him and bid him come to you. I’ll give up my seat if he don’t come to you. Everett was always a quaint fellow, a little idle, you know—mooning about after ideas—”
“He’s no fool, you know,” said the father.
“Not at all;—only vague. But he’s the last man in the world to have nasty vulgar ideas of his own importance as distinguished from yours.”
“Lopez says—”
“I wouldn’t quite trust Lopez.”
“He isn’t a bad fellow in his way, Arthur. Of course he is not what I would have liked for a son-in-law. I needn’t tell you that. But he is kind and gentle-mannered, and has always been attached to Everett. You know he saved Everett’s life at the risk of his own.” Arthur could not but smile as he perceived how the old man was being won round by the son-in-law, whom he had treated so violently before the man had become his son-in-law. “By-the-way, what was all that about a letter you wrote to him?”
“Emily—I mean Mrs. Lopez—will tell you if you ask her.”
“I don’t want to ask her. I don’t want to appear to set the wife against the husband. I am sure, my boy, you would write nothing that could affront her.”
“I think not, Mr. Wharton.
