Chapter 13

PartI. Cambridge
Chapter XIII

Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned for lunch, she was at the same time rather dismayed: she knew that Mrs. Failing would not like her plans altered. And her dismay was justified. Their hostess was a little stiff, and asked whether Stephen had been obnoxious.

"Indeed he hasn't. He spent the whole time looking after me."

"From which I conclude he was more obnoxious than usual." Rickie praised him diligently. But his candid nature showed everything through. His aunt soon saw that they had not got on. She had expected this--almost planned it. Nevertheless she resented it, and her resentment was to fall on him.

The storm gathered slowly, and many other things went to swell it. Weakly people, if they are not careful, hate one another, and when the weakness is hereditary the temptation increases. Elliots had never got on among themselves. They talked of "The Family," but they always turned outwards to the health and beauty that lie so promiscuously about the world. Rickie's father had turned, for a time at all events, to his mother. Rickie himself was turning to Agnes. And Mrs. Failing now was irritable, and unfair to the nephew who was lame like her horrible brother and like herself. She thought him invertebrate and conventional. She was envious of his happiness. She did not trouble to understand his art. She longed to shatter him, but knowing as she did that the human thunderbolt often rebounds and strikes the wielder, she held her hand.

Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie had warned her; now she began to warn him. As the visit wore away she urged him to be pleasant to his aunt, and so convert it into a success.

He replied, "Why need it be a success?"--a reply in the manner of Ansell.

She laughed. "Oh, that's so like you men--all theory! What about your great theory of hating no one? As soon as it comes in useful you drop it."

"I don't hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But certainly I don't want to be near her or think about her. Don't you think there are two great things in life that we ought to aim at--truth and kindness? Let's have both if we can, but let's be sure of having one or the other. My aunt gives up both for the sake of being funny."

"And Stephen Wonham," pursued Agnes. "There's another person you hate--or don't think about, if you prefer it put like that."

"The truth is, I'm changing. I'm beginning to see that the world has many people in it who don't matter. I had time for them once. Not now." There was only one gate to the kingdom of heaven now.

Agnes surprised him by saying, "But the Wonham boy is evidently a part of your aunt's life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him."

"What's that to do with it?"

"You ought to be pleasant to him on account of it."

"Why on earth?"

She flushed a little. "I'm old-fashioned. One ought to