'As you wouldn't come to me,' Christian began, 'I had no choice but to come to you. My visit isn't unwelcome, I hope?'
'Certainly not. But how are you going to get home? You know the time?'
'Don't trouble. I shan't go to bed to-night. Let me sit here and read, will you? If I feel tired I can lie down on the sofa. What a delightful book this is! I must get it.'
It was a history of the Italian Renaissance, recently published.
'Where does this phrase come from?' he continued, pointing to a scrap of paper, used as a book-mark, on which Godwin had pencilled a note. The words were: '_Foris ut moris, intus ut libet_.'
'It's mentioned there,' Peak replied, 'as the motto of those humanists who outwardly conformed to the common faith.'
'I see. All very well when the Inquisition was flourishing, but sounds ignoble nowadays.'
'Do you think so? In a half-civilised age, whether the sixteenth or the nineteenth century, a wise man may do worse than adopt it.'
'Better be honest, surely?'
Peak stood for a moment as if in doubt, then exclaimed irritably:
'Honest? Honest? Who is or can be honest? Who truly declares himself? When a man has learnt that truth is indeterminable, how is it more moral to go about crying that you don't believe a certain dogma than to concede that the dogma may possibly be true? This new morality of the agnostics is mere paltry conceit. Why must I make solemn declaration that I don't believe in absolute knowledge? I might as well be called upon to inform all my acquaintances how I stand with regard to the theories of chemical affinity. One's philosophy has nothing to do with the business of life. If I chose to become a Church of England clergyman, what moral objection could be made?'
This illustration was so amusing to Moxey, that his surprise at what preceded gave way to laughter.
'I wonder,' he exclaimed, 'that you never seriously thought of a profession for which you are so evidently cut out.'
Godwin kept silence; his face had darkened, and he seated himself with sullen weariness.
'Tell me what you've been doing,' resumed Moxey. 'Why haven't I heard from you?'
'I should have come in a day or two. I thought you were probably out of town.'
'Her husband is ill,' said the other, by way of reply. He leaned forward with his arms upon the table, and gazed at Godwin with eyes of peculiar brightness.
'Ill, is he?' returned Godwin, with slow interest. 'In the same way as before?'
'Yes, but much worse.'
Christian paused; and when he again spoke it was hurriedly, confusedly.
'How can I help getting excited about it? How can I behave decently? You're the only man I ever speak to on the subject, and no doubt I both weary and disgust you; but I _must_ speak to some one. My nerves are strung beyond endurance; it's only by speaking that I can ease myself from the intolerable strain.'
'Have you seen her lately?'
'Yesterday, for a moment, in the street. It's ten months since the last meeting.'
'Well,' remarked Godwin, abruptly, 'it's probable the man will die one of these days, then your trials will have a happy end. I see no harm in hoping that his life may be short--that's a conventional feeling. If two people can be benefited by the death of a single person, why shouldn't we be glad in the prospect of his dying? Not of his suffering--that's quite another thing. But die he must; and to curtail the life of a being who at length wholly ceases to exist is no injury. You can't injure a nonentity. Do you think I should take it ill if I knew that some persons were wishing my death? Why, look, if ever I crush a little green fly that crawls upon me in the fields, at once I am filled with envy of its fate--sincerest envy. To have passed so suddenly from being into nothingness--how blessed an extinction! To feel in that way, instinctively, in the very depths of your soul, is to be a true pessimist. If I had ever doubted my sincerity in pessimism, this experience, several times repeated, would have reassured me.'
Christian covered his face, and brooded for a long time, whilst Godwin sat with his eyes on vacancy.
'Come and see us to-morrow,' said the former, at length.
'Perhaps.';
'Why do you keep away?'
'I'm in no mood for society.'
'We'll have no one. Only Marcella and I.'
Again a long silence.
'Marcella is going in for comparative philology,' Christian resumed, with the gentle tone in which he invariably spoke of his sister. 'What a mind that girl has! I never knew any woman of half her powers.'
Godwin said nothing.
'No,' continued the other fervently, 'nor of half her goodness. I sometimes think that no mortal could come nearer to our ideal of moral justice and purity. If it were not for her, I should long ago have gone to perdition, in one way or another. It's her strength, not my own, that has saved me. I daresay you know this?'
'There's some truth in it, I believe,' Peak answered, his eye wandering.
'See how circumstances can affect one's judgment. If, just about the time I first knew you, I had abandoned myself to a life of sottish despair, of course I should have charged Constance with the blame of it. Now that I have struggled on, I can see that she has been a blessing to me instead of a curse. If Marcella has given me strength, I have to thank Constance for the spiritual joy which otherwise I should never have known.'
Peak uttered a short laugh.
'That is only saying that she _might_ have been ruinous, but in the course of circumstances has proved helpful. I envy your power of deriving comfort from such reflections.'
'Well, we view things differently. I have the habit of looking to the consolatory facts of life, you to the depressing. There's an unfortunate lack in you, Peak; you seem insensible to female influence, and I believe that is closely connected with your desperate pessimism.'
Godwin laughed again, this time with mocking length of note. 'Come now, isn't it true?' urged the other. 'Sincerely, do you care for women at all?'
'Perhaps not.'
'A grave misfortune, depend upon it! It accounts for nearly everything that is unsatisfactory in your life. If you had ever been sincerely devoted to a woman, be assured your powers would have developed in a way of which you have no conception. It's no answer to tell me that _I_ am still a mere trifler, never likely to do anything of account; I haven't it in me to be anything better, and I might easily have become much worse. But you might have made yourself a great position--I mean, you _might_ do so; you are still very young. If only you knew the desire of a woman's help.'
'You really think so?' said Godwin, with grave irony.
'I am sure of it! There's no harm in repeating what you have often told me--your egoism oppresses you. A woman's influence takes one out of oneself. No man can be a better authority on this than I. For more than eleven years I have worshipped one woman with absolute faithfulness'----
'Absolute?' interrupted Godwin, bluntly.
'What