Love and Mr. Lewisham Read online

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  MR. CHAFFERY AT HOME.

  The golden mists of delight lifted a little on Monday, when Mr. andMrs. G.E. Lewisham went to call on his mother-in-law andMr. Chaffery. Mrs. Lewisham went in evident apprehension, but cloudsof glory still hung about Lewisham's head, and his manner was heroic.He wore a cotton shirt and linen collar, and a very nice black satintie that Mrs. Lewisham had bought on her own responsibility during theday. She naturally wanted him to look all right.

  Mrs. Chaffery appeared in the half light of the passage as the top ofa grimy cap over Ethel's shoulder and two black sleeves about herneck. She emerged as a small, middle-aged woman, with a thin littlenose between silver-rimmed spectacles, a weak mouth and perplexedeyes, a queer little dust-lined woman with the oddest resemblance toEthel in her face. She was trembling visibly with nervous agitation.

  She hesitated, peering, and then kissed Mr. Lewisham effusively. "Andthis is Mr. Lewisham!" she said as she did so.

  She was the third thing feminine to kiss Lewisham since thepromiscuous days of his babyhood. "I was so afraid--There!" Shelaughed hysterically.

  "You'll excuse my saying that it's comforting to see you--honest likeand young. Not but what Ethel ... _He_ has been something dreadful,"said Mrs. Chaffery. "You didn't ought to have written about thatmesmerising. And of all letters that which Jane wrote--there! Buthe's waiting and listening--"

  "Are we to go downstairs, Mums?" asked Ethel.

  "He's waiting for you there," said Mrs. Chaffery. She held a dismallittle oil lamp, and they descended a tenebrous spiral structure intoan underground breakfast-room lit by gas that shone through apartially frosted globe with cut-glass stars. That descent had adistinctly depressing effect upon Lewisham. He went first. He took adeep breath at the door. What on earth was Chaffery going to say? Notthat he cared, of course.

  Chaffery was standing with his back to the fire, trimming hisfinger-nails with a pocket-knife. His gilt glasses were tilted forwardso as to make an inflamed knob at the top of his long nose, and heregarded Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham over them with--Lewisham doubted hiseyes for a moment--but it was positively a smile, an essentiallywaggish smile.

  "You've come back," he said quite cheerfully over Lewisham toEthel. There was a hint of falsetto in his voice.

  "She has called to see her mother," said Lewisham. "You, I believe,are Mr. Chaffery?"

  "I would like to know who the Deuce _you_ are?" said Chaffery,suddenly tilting his head back so as to look through his glassesinstead of over them, and laughing genially. "For thoroughgoing Cheek,I'm inclined to think you take the Cake. Are you the Mr. Lewisham towhom this misguided girl refers in her letter?"

  "I am."

  "Maggie," said Mr. Chaffery to Mrs. Chaffery, "there is a class ofbeing upon whom delicacy is lost--to whom delicacy is practicallyunknown. Has your daughter got her marriage lines?"

  "Mr. Chaffery!" said Lewisham, and Mrs. Chaffery exclaimed, "James!How _can_ you?"

  Chaffery shut his penknife with a click and slipped it into hisvest-pocket. Then he looked up again, speaking in the same equalvoice. "I presume we are civilised persons prepared to manage ouraffairs in a civilised way. My stepdaughter vanishes for two nightsand returns with an alleged husband. I at least am not disposed to becareless about her legal position."

  "You ought to know her better--" began Lewisham.

  "Why argue about it," said Chaffery gaily, pointing a lean finger atEthel's gesture, "when she has 'em in her pocket? She may just as wellshow me now. I thought so. Don't be alarmed at my handling them.Fresh copies can always be got at the nominal price of two-and-seven.Thank you ... Lewisham, George Edgar. One-and-twenty. And ...You--one-and-twenty! I never did know your age, my dear, exactly, andnow your mother won't say. Student! Thank you. I am greatlyobliged. Indeed I am greatly relieved. And now, what have you got tosay for yourselves in this remarkable affair?"

  "You had a letter," said Lewisham.

  "I had a letter of excuses--the personalities I overlook ... Yes,sir--they were excuses. You young people wanted to marry--and youseized an occasion. You did not even refer to the fact that youwanted to marry in your letter. Pure modesty! But now you have comehere married. It disorganises this household, it inflicts endlessbother on people, but never you mind that! I'm not blaming_you_. Nature's to blame! Neither of you know what you are in foryet. You will. You're married, and that is the great essentialthing.... (Ethel, my dear, just put your husband's hat and stickbehind the door.) And you, sir, are so good as to disapprove of theway in which I earn my living?"

  "Well," said Lewisham. "Yes--I'm bound to say I do."

  "You are really _not_ bound to say it. The modesty of inexperiencewould excuse you."

  "Yes, but it isn't right--it isn't straight."

  "Dogma," said Chaffery. "Dogma!"

  "What do you mean by dogma?" asked Lewisham.

  "I mean, dogma. But we must argue this out in comfort. It is oursupper hour, and I'm not the man to fight against accomplishedfacts. We have intermarried. There it is. You must stop tosupper--and you and I must thresh these things out. We've involvedourselves with each other and we've got to make the best of it. Yourwife and mine will spread the board, and we will go on talking. Whynot sit in that chair instead of leaning on the back? This is ahome--_domus_--not a debating society--humble in spite of my manifestfrauds.... That's better. And in the first place I hope--I do sohope"--Chaffery was suddenly very impressive--"that you're not aDissenter."

  "Eh!" said Lewisham, and then, "No! I am _not_ a Dissenter."

  "That's better," said Mr. Chaffery. "I'm glad of that. I was just alittle afraid--Something in your manner. I can't stand Dissenters.I've a peculiar dislike to Dissenters. To my mind it's the greatdrawback of this Clapham. You see ... I have invariably found themdeceitful--invariably."

  He grimaced and dropped his glasses with a click against his waistcoatbuttons. "I'm very glad of that," he said, replacing them. "TheDissenter, the Nonconformist Conscience, the Puritan, you know, theVegetarian and Total Abstainer, and all that sort of thing, I cannotaway with them. I have cleared my mind of cant and formulae. I've anature essentially Hellenic. Have you ever read Matthew Arnold?"

  "Beyond my scientific reading--"

  "Ah! you _should_ read Matthew Arnold--a mind of singular clarity. Inhim you would find a certain quality that is sometimes a littlewanting in your scientific men. They are apt to be a little toophenomenal, you know, a little too objective. Now I seek afternoumena. Noumena, Mr. Lewisham! If you follow me--?"

  He paused, and his eyes behind the glasses were mildlyinterrogative. Ethel re-entered without her hat and jacket, and with anoisy square black tray, a white cloth, some plates and knives andglasses, and began to lay the table.

  "_I_ follow you," said Lewisham, reddening. He had not the courage toadmit ignorance of this remarkable word. "You state your case."

  "I seek after _noumena_," repeated Chaffery with great satisfaction,and gesticulated with his hand, waving away everything but that. "Icannot do with surfaces and appearances. I am one of thosenympholepts, you know, nympholepts ... Must pursue the truth ofthings! the elusive fundamental ... I make a rule, I never tell myselflies--never. There are few who can say that. To my mind--truth beginsat home. And for the most part--stops there. Safest and seemliest!_you_ know. With most men--with your typical Dissenter _parexcellence_--it's always gadding abroad, calling on the neighbours.You see my point of view?"

  He glanced at Lewisham, who was conscious of an unwonted opacity ofmind. He became wary, as wary as he could manage to be on the spur ofthe moment.

  "It's a little surprising, you know," he said very carefully, "if Imay say so--and considering what happened--to hear _you_ ..."

  "Speaking of truth? Not when you understand my position. Not when yousee where I stand. That is what I am getting at. That is what I amnaturally anxious to make clear to you now that we have intermarried,now that you are my stepson-in-law. You're young, you know, you'reyoung, and
you're hard and fast. Only years can give a mind_tone_--mitigate the varnish of education. I gather from thisletter--and your face--that you are one of the party that participatedin that little affair at Lagune's."

  He stuck out a finger at a point he had just seen. "By-the-bye!--Thataccounts for Ethel," he said.

  Ethel rapped down the mustard on the table. "It does," she said, butnot very loudly.

  "But you had met before?" said Chaffery.

  "At Whortley," said Lewisham.

  "I see," said Chaffery.

  "I was in--I was one of those who arranged the exposure," saidLewisham. "And now you have raised the matter, I am bound to say--"

  "I knew," interrupted Chaffery. "But what a shock that was forLagune!" He looked down at his toes for a moment with the corners ofhis mouth tucked in. "The hand dodge wasn't bad, you know," he said,with a queer sidelong smile.

  Lewisham was very busy for a moment trying to get this remark infocus. "I don't see it in the same light as you do," he explained atlast.

  "Can't get away from your moral bias, eh?--Well, well. We'll go intoall that. But apart from its moral merits--simply as an artistictrick--it was not bad."

  "I don't know much about tricks--"

  "So few who undertake exposures do. You admit you never heard orthought of that before--the bladder, I mean. Yet it's as obvious astintacks that a medium who's hampered at his hands will do all he canwith his teeth, and what _could_ be so self-evident as a bladder underone's lappel? What could be? Yet I know psychic literature prettywell, and it's never been suggested even! Never. It's a perpetualsurprise to me how many things are _not_ thought of by investigators.For one thing, they never count the odds against them, and that putsthem wrong at the start. Look at it! I am by nature tricky. I spendall my leisure standing or sitting about and thinking up or practisingnew little tricks, because it amuses me immensely to do so. The wholething amuses me. Well--what is the result of these meditations? Takeone thing:--I know eight-and-forty ways of making raps--of which atleast ten are original. Ten original ways of making raps." His mannerwas very impressive. "And some of them simply tremendous raps. There!"

  A confirmatory rap exploded--as it seemed between Lewisham andChaffery.

  "_Eh?_" said Chaffery.

  The mantelpiece opened a dropping fire, and the table went off underLewisham's nose like a cracker.

  "You see?" said Chaffery, putting his hands under the tail of hiscoat. The whole room seemed snapping its fingers at Lewisham for aspace.

  "Very well, and now take the other side. Take the severest test I evertried. Two respectable professors of physics--not Newtons, youunderstand, but good, worthy, self-important professors of physics--alady anxious to prove there's a life beyond the grave, a journalistwho wants stuff to write--a person, that is, who gets his living bythese researches just as I do--undertook to test me. Test _me_!... Ofcourse they had their other work to do, professing physics, professingreligion, organising research, and so forth. At the outside they don'tthink an hour a day about it, and most of them had never cheatedanybody in their existence, and couldn't, for example, travel withouta ticket for a three-mile journey and not get caught, to save theirlives.... Well--you see the odds?"

  He paused. Lewisham appeared involved in some interior struggle.

  "You know," explained Chaffery, "it was quite an accident you gotme--quite. The thing slipped out of my mouth. Or your friend with, theflat voice wouldn't have had a chance. Not a chance."

  Lewisham spoke like a man who is lifting a weight. "All _this_, youknow, is off the question. I'm not disputing your ability. But thething is ... it isn't right."

  "We're coming to that," said Chaffery.

  "It's evident we look at things in a different light."

  "That's it. That's just what we've got to discuss. Exactly!"

  "Cheating is cheating. You can't get away from that. That's simpleenough."

  "Wait till I've done with it," said Chaffery with a certain zest. "Ofcourse it's imperative you should understand my position. It isn't asthough I hadn't one. Ever since I read your letter I've been thinkingover that. Really!--a justification! In a way you might almost say Ihad a mission. A sort of prophet. You really don't see the beginningof it yet."

  "Oh, but hang it!" protested Lewisham.

  "Ah! you're young, you're crude. My dear young man, you're only at thebeginning of things. You really must concede a certain possibility ofwider views to a man more than twice your age. But here's supper. Fora little while at any rate we'll call a truce."

  Ethel had come in again bearing an additional chair, and Mrs. Chafferyappeared behind her, crowning the preparations with a jug of smallbeer. The cloth, Lewisham observed, as he turned towards it, hadseveral undarned holes and discoloured places, and in the centre stooda tarnished cruet which contained mustard, pepper, vinegar, and threeambiguous dried-up bottles. The bread was on an ample board with apious rim, and an honest wedge of cheese loomed disproportionate on alittle plate. Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham were seated facing one another,and Mrs. Chaffery sat in the broken chair because she understood itsways.

  "This cheese is as nutritious and unattractive and indigestible asScience," remarked Chaffery, cutting and passing wedges. "But crushit--so--under your fork, add a little of this good Dorset butter, adab of mustard, pepper--the pepper is very necessary--and some maltvinegar, and crush together. You get a compound called Crab and by nomeans disagreeable. So the wise deal with the facts of life, neitherbolting nor rejecting, but adapting."

  "As though pepper and mustard were not facts," said Lewisham, scoringhis solitary point that evening.

  Chaffery admitted the collapse of his image in very complimentaryterms, and Lewisham could not avoid a glance across the table atEthel. He remembered that Chaffery was a slippery scoundrel whoseblame was better than his praise, immediately afterwards.

  For a time the Crab engaged Chaffery, and the conversationlanguished. Mrs. Chaffery asked Ethel formal questions about theirlodgings, and Ethel's answers were buoyant, "You must come and havetea one day," said Ethel, not waiting for Lewisham's endorsement, "andsee it all."

  Chaffery astonished Lewisham by suddenly displaying a completeacquaintance with his status as a South Kensington teacher intraining. "I suppose you have some money beyond that guinea," saidChaffery offhandedly.

  "Enough to go on with," said Lewisham, reddening.

  "And you look to them at South Kensington, to do something for you--ahundred a year or so, when your scholarship is up?"

  "Yes," said Lewisham a little reluctantly. "Yes. A hundred a year orso. That's the sort of idea. And there's lots of places beyond SouthKensington, of course, even if they don't put me up there."

  "I see," said Chaffery; "but it will be a pretty close shave for allthat--one hundred a year. Well, well--there's many a deserving man hasto do with less," and after a meditative pause he asked Lewisham topass the beer.

  "Hev you a mother living, Mr. Lewisham?" said Mrs. Chaffery suddenly,and pursued him through the tale of his connexions. When he came tothe plumber, Mrs. Chaffery remarked with an unexpected air ofconsequence that most families have their poor relations. Then theair of consequence vanished again into the past from which it hadarisen.

  Supper finished, Chaffery poured the residuum of the beer into hisglass, produced a Broseley clay of the longest sort, and invitedLewisham to smoke. "Honest smoking," said Chaffery, tapping the bowlof his clay, and added: "In this country--cigars--sound cigars--andhonesty rarely meet."

  Lewisham fumbled in his pocket for his Algerian cigarettes, andChaffery having regarded them unfavourably through his glasses, tookup the thread of his promised apologia. The ladies retired to wash upthe supper things.

  "You see," said Chaffery, opening abruptly so soon as the clay wasdrawing, "about this cheating--I do not find life such a simple matteras you do."

  "_I_ don't find life simple," said Lewisham, "but I do think there's aRight and a Wrong in things. And I don't think you have said anythings
o far to show that spiritualistic cheating is Right."

  "Let us thresh the matter out," said Chaffery, crossing his legs; "letus thresh the matter out. Now"--he drew at his pipe--"I don't thinkyou fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the EssentialNature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. You are inclined todiscredit one particular form of Imposture, because it is notgenerally admitted--carries a certain discredit, and--witness the heeledges of my trouser legs, witness yonder viands--small rewards."

  "It's not that," said Lewisham.

  "Now I am prepared to maintain," said Chaffery, proceeding with hisproposition, "that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic anddisintegrating force in society, that communities are held togetherand the progress of civilisation made possible only by vigorous andsometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothingmore or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to andhumbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are themortar that bind the savage Individual man into the socialmasonry. There is the general thesis upon which I base myjustification. My mediumship, I can assure you, is a particularinstance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundlyindolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse towriting, I would make a great book of this and live honoured by everyprofound duffer in the world."

  "But how are _you_ going to prove it?"

  "Prove It! It simply needs pointing out. Even now there aremen--Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, and such like--who have seen bits of it in anew-gospel-grubbing sort of fashion. What Is man? Lust and greedtempered by fear and an irrational vanity."

  "I don't agree with that," said Mr. Lewisham.

  "You will as you grow older," said Chaffery. "There's truths you haveto grow into. But about this matter of Lies--let us look at the fabricof society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the onlyessential difference between savage and civilised is this: The formerhasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Takethe most obvious difference--the clothing of the civilised man, hisinvention of decency. What _is_ clothing? The concealment of essentialfacts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against decency anddecorum, mind you, but there they are--essentials to civilisation andessentially '_suppressio veri_.' And in the pockets of his clothes ourcitizen carries money. The pure savage has no money. To him a lump ofmetal is a lump of metal--possibly ornamental--no more. That'sright. To any lucid-minded man it's the same or different only throughthe gross folly of his fellows. But to the common civilised man theuniversal exchangeability of this gold is a sacred and fundamentalfact. Think of it! Why should it be? There isn't a why! I live inperpetual amazement at the gullibility of my fellow-creatures. Of amorning sometimes, I can assure you, I lie in bed fancying that peoplemay have found out this swindle in the night, expect to hear a tumultdownstairs and see your mother-in-law come rushing into the room witha rejected shilling from the milkman. 'What's this?' says he. 'ThisMuck for milk?' But it never happens. Never. If it did, if peoplesuddenly cleared their minds of this cant of money, what would happen?The true nature of man would appear. I should whip out of bed, seizesome weapon, and after the milkman forthwith. It's becoming to keepthe peace, but it's necessary to have milk. The neighbours would comepouring out--also after milk. Milkman, suddenly enlightened, wouldstart clattering up the street. After him! Clutch--tear! Got him!Over goes the cart! Fight if you like, but don't upset thecan!... Don't you see it all?--perfectly reasonable every bit of it. Ishould return, bruised and bloody, with the milk-can under my arm.Yes, _I_ should have the milk-can--I should keep my eye onthat.... But why go on? You of all men should know that life is astruggle for existence, a fight for food. Money is just the lie thatmitigates our fury."

  "No," said Lewisham; "no! I'm not prepared to admit that."

  "What _is_ money?"

  Mr. Lewisham dodged. "You state your case first," he said. "I reallydon't see what all this has to do with cheating at a _seance_."

  "I weave my defence from this loom, though. Take some aggressivelyrespectable sort of man--a bishop, for example."

  "Well," said Lewisham, "I don't much hold with bishops."

  "It doesn't matter. Take a professor of science, walking theearth. Remark his clothing, making a decent citizen out of him,concealing the fact that physically he is a flabby, pot-bellieddegenerate. That is the first Lie of his being. No fringes round _his_trousers, my boy. Notice his hair, groomed and clipped, the tacit liethat its average length is half an inch, whereas in nature he wouldwave a few score yard-long hairs of ginger grey to the winds ofheaven. Notice the smug suppressions of his face. In his mouth areLies in the shape of false teeth. Then on the earth somewhere poordevils are toiling to get him meat and corn and wine. He is clothed inthe lives of bent and thwarted weavers, his Way is lit by phossy jaw,he eats from lead-glazed crockery--all his ways are paved with thelives of men.... Think of the chubby, comfortable creature! And, asSwift has it--to think that such a thing should deal in pride!... Hepretends that his blessed little researches are in some way a fairreturn to these remote beings for their toil, their suffering;pretends that he and his parasitic career are payment for theirthwarted desires. Imagine him bullying his gardener over sometransplanted geraniums, the thick mist of lies they stand in, so thatthe man does not immediately with the edge of a spade smite down hisimpertinence to the dust from which it rose.... And his case is thecase of all comfortable lives. What a lie and sham all civility is,all good breeding, all culture and refinement, while one poor raggedwretch drags hungry on the earth!"

  "But this is Socialism!" said Lewisham. "_I_--"

  "No Ism," said Chaffery, raising his rich voice. "Only the ghastlytruth of things--the truth that the warp and the woof of the world ofmen is Lying. Socialism is no remedy, no _ism_ is a remedy; thingsare so."

  "I don't agree--" began Lewisham.

  "Not with the hopelessness, because you are young, but with thedescription you do."

  "Well--within limits."

  "You agree that most respectable positions in the world are taintedwith the fraud of our social conditions. If they were not taintedwith fraud they would not be respectable. Even your own position--Whogave you the right to marry and prosecute interesting scientificstudies while other young men rot in mines?"

  "I admit--"

  "You can't help admitting. And here is my position. Since all ways oflife are tainted with fraud, since to live and speak the truth isbeyond human strength and courage--as one finds it--is it not betterfor a man that he engage in some straightforward comparatively harmlesscheating, than if he risk his mental integrity in some ambiguousposition and fall at last into self-deception and self-righteousness?That is the essential danger. That is the thing I always guardagainst. Heed that! It is the master sin. Self-righteousness."

  Mr. Lewisham pulled at his moustache.

  "You begin to take me. And after all, these worthy people do notsuffer so greatly. If I did not take their money some other impostorwould. Their huge conceit of intelligence would breed perhaps someviler swindle than my facetious rappings. That's the line our doubtingbishops take, and why shouldn't I? For example, these people mightgive it to Public Charities, minister to the fattened secretary, theprodigal younger son. After all, at worst, I am a sort of latter-dayRobin Hood; I take from the rich according to their incomes. I don'tgive to the poor certainly, I don't get enough. But--there are othergood works. Many a poor weakling have I comforted with Lies, greatthumping, silly Lies, about the grave! Compare me with one of thoserascals who disseminate phossy jaw and lead poisons, compare me with amillionaire who runs a music hall with an eye to feminine talent, oran underwriter, or the common stockbroker. Or any sort of lawyer....

  "There are bishops," said Chaffery, "who believe in Darwin and doubtMoses. Now, I hold myself better than they--analogous perhaps, butbetter--for I do at least invent something of the tricks I play--I dodo that."

  "That's all very well," began Lewisham.

  "I might forgive them their dishones
ty," said Chaffery, "but thestupidity of it, the mental self-abnegation--Lord! If a solicitordoesn't swindle in the proper shabby-magnificent way, they chuck himfor unprofessional conduct." He paused. He became meditative, andsmiled faintly.

  "Now, some of _my_ dodges," he said with a sudden change of voice,turning towards Lewisham, his eyes smiling over his glasses and anemphatic hand patting the table-cloth; "some of _my_ dodges are_damned_ ingenious, you know--_damned_ ingenious--and well worthdouble the money they bring me--double."

  He turned towards the fire again, pulling at his smouldering pipe, andeyeing Lewisham over the corner of his glasses.

  "One or two of my little things would make Maskelyne sit up," he saidpresently. "They would set that mechanical orchestra playing out ofpure astonishment. I really must explain some of them to you--now wehave intermarried."

  It took Mr. Lewisham a minute or so to re-form the regiment of hismind, disordered by its headlong pursuit of Chaffery's flyingarguments. "But on your principles you might do almost anything!" hesaid.

  "Precisely!" said Chaffery.

  "But--"

  "It is rather a curious method," protested Chaffery; "to test one'sprinciples of action by judging the resultant actions on some otherprinciple, isn't it?"

  Lewisham took a moment to think. "I suppose that is so," he said, inthe manner of a man convinced against his will.

  He perceived his logic insufficient. He suddenly thrust the delicaciesof argument aside. Certain sentences he had brought ready for use inhis mind came up and he delivered them abruptly. "Anyhow," he said, "Idon't agree with this cheating. In spite of what you say, I hold towhat I said in my letter. Ethel's connexion with all these things isat an end. I shan't go out of my way to expose you, of course, but ifit comes in my way I shall speak my mind of all these spiritualisticphenomena. It's just as well that we should know clearly where weare."

  "That is clearly understood, my dear stepson-in-law," saidChaffery. "Our present object is discussion."

  "But Ethel--"

  "Ethel is yours," said Chaffery. "Ethel is yours," he repeated afteran interval and added pensively--"to keep."

  "But talking of Illusion," he resumed, dismissing the sordid with asign of relief, "I sometimes think with Bishop Berkeley, that allexperience is probably something quite different from reality. Thatconsciousness is _essentially_ hallucination. I, here, and you, andour talk--it is all Illusion. Bring your Science to bear--what am I? Acloudy multitude of atoms, an infinite interplay of little cells. Isthis hand that I hold out me? This head? Is the surface of my skin anymore than a rude average boundary? You say it is my mind that is me?But consider the war of motives. Suppose I have an impulse that Iresist--it is _I_ resist it--the impulse is outside me, eh? Butsuppose that impulse carries me and I do the thing--that impulse ispart of me, is it not? Ah! My brain reels at these mysteries! Lord!what flimsy fluctuating things we are--first this, then that, athought, an impulse, a deed and a forgetting, and all the time madlycocksure we are ourselves. And as for you--you who have hardly learnedto think for more than five or six short years, there you sit,assured, coherent, there you sit in all your inherited originalsin--Hallucinatory Windlestraw!--judging and condemning. _You_ knowRight from Wrong! My boy, so did Adam and Eve ... _so soon as they'dhad dealings with the father of lies_!"

  * * * * *

  At the end of the evening whisky and hot water were produced, andChaffery, now in a mood of great urbanity, said he had rarely enjoyedanyone's conversation so much as Lewisham's, and insisted uponeveryone having whisky. Mrs. Chaffery and Ethel added sugar andlemon. Lewisham felt an instantaneous mild surprise at the sight ofEthel drinking grog.

  At the door Mrs. Chaffery kissed Lewisham an effusive good-bye, andtold Ethel she really believed it was all for the best.

  On the way home Lewisham was thoughtful and preoccupied. The problemof Chaffery assumed enormous proportions. At times indeed even thatgood man's own philosophical sketch of himself as a practical exponentof mental sincerity touched with humour and the artistic spirit,seemed plausible. Lagune was an undeniable ass, and conceivablypsychic research was an incentive to trickery. Then he remembered thematter in his relation to Ethel....

  "Your stepfather is a little hard to follow," he said at last, sittingon the bed and taking off one boot. "He's dodgy--he's so confoundedlydodgy. One doesn't know where to take hold of him. He's got such abreak he's clean bowled me again and again."

  He thought for a space, and then removed his boot and sat with it onhis knee. "Of course!... all that he said was wrong--quitewrong. Right is right and cheating is cheating, whatever you say aboutit."

  "That's what I feel about him," said Ethel at the looking-glass."That's exactly how it seems to me."