"
Miltoun smiled.
Lord Dennis continued very dryly and with a touch of malice:
"You are not listening to me; but I can see very well that the process
has begun already underneath. There's a curious streak of the Jesuit in
you, Eustace. What you don't want to see, you won't look at."
"You advise me, then, to compromise?"
"On the contrary, I point out that you will be compromising if you try
to keep both your conscience and your love. You will be seeking to have,
it both ways."
"That is interesting."
"And you will find yourself having it neither," said Lord Dennis
sharply.
Miltoun rose. "In other words, you, like the others, recommend me to
desert this lady who loves me, and whom I love. And yet, Uncle, they say
that in your own case----"
But Lord Dennis had risen, too, having lost all the appanage and manner
of old age.
"Of my own case," he said bluntly, "we won't talk. I don't advise you to
desert anyone; you quite mistake me. I advise you to know yourself.
And I tell you my opinion of you--you were cut out by Nature for a
statesman, not a lover! There's something dried-up in you, Eustace; I'm
not sure there isn't something dried-up in all our caste. We've had
to do with forms and ceremonies too long. We're not good at taking the
lyrical point of view."
"Unfortunately," said Miltoun, "I cannot, to fit in with a theory of
yours, commit a baseness.
Pages:
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310