Part 14 (1/2)

”Of course we are rather barbarous.”

”Hermione! How can you say I ever said such a thing!” interposed Miss Dabstreak, with a deprecating glance at Paul. ”I only said the Russians were such a young and manly race, so interesting, so unlike the inhabitants of this dreary den of printing-presses and steam-engines, so”----

”Thanks, aunt Chrysophrasia,” said Paul, ”for the delightful ideal you have formed of us. We are certainly less civilized than you, and perhaps, as you are so good as to believe, we are the more interesting.

I suppose the unbroken colt of the desert is more interesting than an American trotting horse, but for downright practical use”----

”There is such a tremendous talk of usefulness!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Chrysophrasia, a faint, sad smile flickering over her sallow features.

”Usefulness is so remarkably useful,” I remarked.

”Oh, Mr. Griggs,” exclaimed Hermione, ”what an immensely witty speech!”

”There is nothing so witty as truth, Miss Carvel, though you laugh at it,” I answered, ”for where there is no truth, there is no wit. I maintain that usefulness is really useful. Miss Dabstreak, I believe, maintains the contrary.”

”Indeed, I care more for beauty than for usefulness,” replied the aesthetic lady, with a fine smile.

”Beauty is indeed truly useful,” said Paul, with a very faint imitation of Chrysophrasia's accent, ”and it should be sought in everything. But that need not prevent us from seeing true beauty in all that is truly useful.”

I had a faint suspicion that if Patoff had mimicked Miss Dabstreak in the first half of his speech, he had imitated me in the second portion of the sentiment. I do not like to be made game of, because I am aware that I am naturally pedantic. It is an old trick of the schools to rouse a pedant to desperate and distracted self-contradiction by quietly imitating everything he says.

”You are very clever at taking both sides of a question at once,” said Hermione, with a smile.

”Almost all questions have two sides,” answered Paul, ”but very often both sides are true. A man may perfectly appreciate and approve of the opinions of two persons who take diametrically opposite views of the same point, provided there be no question of right and wrong involved.”

”Perhaps,” retorted Hermione; ”but then the man who takes both sides has no opinion of his own. I do not like that.”

”In general, cousin Hermione,” said Paul, with a polite smile, ”you may be sure that any man will make your opinion his. In this case, I submit that both beauty and usefulness are good, and that they need not at all interfere with each other. As for the compliment my aunt Chrysophrasia has paid to us Russians, I do not think we can be said to have gone very far in either direction as yet.” After which diplomatic speech Paul dropped his eyegla.s.s, and looked pleasantly round upon all three of us, as much as to say that it was impossible to draw him into the position of disagreeing with any one present by any device whatsoever.

IX.

Professor Cutter and I walked to the village that afternoon. He is a great pedestrian, and is never satisfied unless he can walk four or five miles a day. His robust and somewhat heavy frame was planned rather for bodily labor than for the housing of so active a mind, and he often complains that the exercise of his body has robbed him of years of intellectual labor. He grumbles at the necessity of wasting time in that way, but he never omits his daily walk.

”I should like to possess your temperament, Mr. Griggs,” he remarked, as we walked briskly through the park. ”You might renounce exercise and open air for the rest of your life, and never be the worse for it.”

”I hardly know,” I answered. ”I have never tried any regular method of life, and I have never been ill. I do not believe in regular methods.”

”That is the ideal const.i.tution. By the by, I had hoped to induce Patoff to come with us, but he said he would stay with the ladies.”

”You will never induce him to do anything he does not want to do,” I replied. ”However, I dare say you know that as well as I do.”

”What makes you say that?”

”I can see it,--it is plain enough. Carvel wanted him to go and shoot something after lunch, you wanted him to come for a walk, Macaulay wanted him to bury himself up-stairs and talk out the Egyptian question, I wanted to get him into the smoking-room to ask him questions about some friends of mine in the East, Miss Dabstreak had plans to waylay him with her pottery. Not a bit of it! He smiled at us all, and serenely sat by Mrs. Carvel, talking to her and Miss Hermione. He has a will of his own.”

”Indeed he has,” a.s.sented the professor. ”He is a moderately clever fellow, with a smooth tongue and a despotic character, a much better combination than a weak will and the mind of a genius. You are right, he is not to be turned by trifles.”

”I see that he must be a good diplomatist in these days.”

”Diplomacy has got past the stage of being intellectual,” said the professor. ”There was a time when a fine intellect was thought important in an amba.s.sador; nowadays it is enough if his excellency can hold his tongue and show his teeth. The question is, whether the low estimate of intellect in our day is due to the exigency of modern affairs, or to the exiguity of modern intelligence.”