A Change of Air

The gentleman to whom they referred sat looking on at them with no great pleasure, though they found one another entertaining enough to prevent them noticing him. Dale Bannister said that his new friend took life seriously, and the charge was too true for the Doctor's happiness. Dale Bannister had taken hold of his imagination. He expected Dale to do all he would give his life to see done, but could not do himself. The effect of Dale was to be instantaneous, enormous, transforming Denborough and its inhabitants. He regarded the poet much as a man might look upon a benevolent volcano, did such a thing exist in the order of nature. His function was, in the Doctor's eyes, to pour forth the burning lava of truth and justice, wherewith the ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty of the present order should be consumed and smothered; let the flood be copious, scorching, and unceasing! The Doctor could do little more than hail the blessed shower and declare its virtues; but that he was ready to do at any cost. And the volcano would not act! The eruptions were sadly intermittent. The hero, instead of going forth to war, was capering nimbly in a lady's chamber, to the lascivious pleasing of a lute; that is to say, he was talking trifles to Tora Smith, with apparent enjoyment, forgetful of his mission, ignoring the powers of darkness around. No light-spreading saying, no swordflash had come from him all the evening. He was fiddling while Rome was – waiting for the burning it needed so badly.

Perhaps it was a woebegone look about the Doctor that made Philip Hume take the chair next him after dinner, while Dale was, still as if in play, emitting anarchist sparks for the Colonel's entertainment.

"Is it possible," asked the Doctor in low, half-angry tones, "that he thinks these people are any good – that they are sincere or thorough in the matter? He's wasting his time."

"Well, well, my dear fellow, we must all dine, whatever our opinions."

"Oh, yes; we must dine, while the world starves."

"The bow can't be always stretched," said Philip, with a slight smile.

"You don't think, Hume, do you, that he's getting any less – less in earnest, you know?"

"Oh, he wrote a scorcher this very morning."

"Did he? That's good news. Where is it to appear?"

"I don't know. He didn't write it on commission."

"His poems have such magnificent restlessness, haven't they? I can't bear to see him idle."

"Poor Dale! You must give him some holidays. He likes pleasure like the rest of us."

The Doctor sighed impatiently, and Philip looking at him anxiously, laid a hand on his arm.

"Roberts," he said, "there is no need that you should be ground to powder."

"I don't understand."

"I hope you never will. Your wife doesn't look very strong. Why don't you give her a change?"

"A change? How am I to afford a change? Besides, who wants a change? What change do most workers get?"

"Hang most workers! Your wife wants a change."

"I haven't got the money, anyhow."

"Then there's an end of it."

The Colonel rose, and they made for the drawing room.

Philip detained his companion for a moment.

"Well?" said the Doctor, feeling the touch on his arm.

"For God's sake, old fellow, go slow," said Philip, pressing his arm, and looking at him with an appealing smile.

CHAPTER VII.

"To a Pretty Saint."

When Mrs. Delane came back from London, she was met with a question of the precise kind on which she felt herself to be no mean authority. It was a problem of propriety, of etiquette, and of the usages of society, and Mrs. Delane attacked it with a due sense of its importance and with the pleasure of an expert. It arose out of Dale Bannister's call at the Grange. Dale had been accustomed, when a lady found favor in his eyes, to inform her of the gratifying news through the medium of a set of verses, more or less enthusiastic and rhapsodic in their nature. The impulse to follow his usual practice was strong on him after meeting Janet Delane, and issued in the composition of that poem called "To a Pretty Saint," the title of which Nellie had seen. He copied it out fair, and was about to put it in the post when a thought suddenly struck him. Miss Delane was not quite like most of his acquaintances. It was perhaps possible that she might think his action premature, or even impertinent, and that she might deem it incumbent on her to resent being called either a saint or pretty by a friend of one interview's standing. Dale was divided between his newborn doubt of his own instinct of what was permissible and his great reluctance to doom his work to suppression. He decided to consult Philip Hume, who was, as he knew, more habituated to the social atmosphere of places like Denshire.

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