CHAPTER XVIII
A few months later, when Lewis had very much modified his ideas ofLondon, he was walking with his father in the park at the hour which thegeneral English fitness of things assigns to the initiated. A verylittle breaking in and a great deal of tailoring had gone a long waywith Lewis. Men looked at father and son as though they thought theyought to recognize them even if they didn't. Women turned kindly eyesupon them.
The morning after Lady Derl took Lewis into her carriage in the park shereceived three separate notes from female friends demanding that she"divvy up." Knowing women in general and the three in special, sheprepared to comply. Often Lewis and his father had been summoned by ascribbled note for pot-luck with Lady Derl; but this time it was aformal invitation, engraved.
Lewis read his card casually. His face lighted up. Leighton read hiswith deeper perception, and frowned.
"Already!" he grunted. Then he said: "When you've finished breakfast,come to my den. I want to talk to you."
Lewis found his father sitting like a judge on the bench, behind a greatoak desk he rarely used. An envelope, addressed, lay before him. He rangfor Nelton and sent it out.
"Sit down," he said to Lewis. "Where did you get your education? Byeducation I don't mean a knowledge of knives, forks, and fish-eaters.That's from Ann Leighton, of course. Nor do I mean the power of addingtwo to two or reciting A B C D, etc. By education a gentleman meansskill in handling life."
"And have I got it?" asked Lewis, smiling.
"You meet life with a calmness and deftness unusual in a boy," saidLeighton, gravely.
"I--I don't know," began Lewis. "I've never been educated. By the time Iwas nine I knew how to read and write and figure a little. Afterthat--you know--I just sat on the hills for years with the goats. I readthe Reverend Orme's books, of course."
"What were the books?"
"There weren't many," said Lewis. "There was the Bible, of course. Therewas a little set of Shakspere in awfully fine print and a set of WalterScott."
Leighton nodded. "The Bible is essential but not educative until youlearn to depolarize it. Shakspere--you'll begin to read Shakspere inabout ten years. Walter Scott. Scott--well--Scott is just a bright axfor the neck of time. What else did you read?"
"I read 'The City of God' but not very often."
For a second Leighton stared; then he burst into laughter. He checkedhimself suddenly.
"Boy," he said, "don't misunderstand. I'm not laughing at the book; I'mlaughing at your reading St. Augustine even 'not very often!'"
"Why shouldn't you laugh?" asked Lewis, simply. "I laughed sometimes. Iremember I always laughed at the heading to the twenty-first book."
"Did you?" said Leighton, a look of wonder in his face. "What is it? Idon't quite recollect the headings that far."
"'Of the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell, and of the variousobjections urged against it,'" quoted Lewis, smiling.
Leighton grinned his appreciation.
"There is a flavor about unconscious humor," he said, "that's like thebouquet to a fine wine: only the initiated catch it. I'm afraid you werean educated person even before you read St. Augustine. Did he put up agood case for torment? You see, you've found me out. I've never readhim."
"His case was weak in spots," said Lewis. "His examples from nature, forinstance, proving that bodies may remain unconsumed and alive in fire."
"Yes?" said Leighton.
"He starts out, 'if, therefore the salamander lives in fire, asnaturalists have recorded----' I looked up salamander in thedictionary."
Lewis's eyes were laughing, but Leighton's grew suddenly grave. "Poorold chap!" he said. "He didn't know that time rots the sanest argument.'Oh... that mine adversary had written a book,' cried one who knew."
Leighton sat thoughtful for a moment, then he threw up his head.
"Well," he said, "we'll give up trying to find out how you got educated.Let's change the subject. Has it occurred to you that at any moment youmay be called upon to support yourself?"
"It did once," said Lewis, "when I started for Oeiras. Then I met you.You haven't given me time or--or cause to think about it since. I'm--I'mnot ungrateful----"
"That's enough," broke in Leighton. "Let's stick to the point. It's alucky thing for the progress of the world that riches often take to thewing. It may happen to any of us at any time. The amount of stupiditythat sweating humanity applies to the task of making a living iscolossal. In about a million years we'll learn that making a livingconsists in knowing how to do well any necessary thing. It's harder fora gentleman to make a living than for a farm-hand. But--come with me."
He took Lewis to a certain Mecca of mighty appetites in the Strand.Before choosing a table, he made the round of the roasts, shoulders andfowl. They were in great domed, silver salvers, each on a barrow, eachkept hot over lighted lamps.
Leighton seated himself and ordered.
"Now, boy, without staring take a good look at the man that does thecarving."
One of the barrows was trundled to their table. An attendant lifted thedomed cover with a flourish. With astounding rapidity the carver took aneven cut from the mighty round of beef, then another. The cover wasclapped on again, and the barrow trundled away.
"You saw him?" asked Leighton.
Lewis nodded.
"Well, that chap got through twenty thousand a year,--pounds, notdollars,--capital and income, in just five years. After that he starved.I know a man that lent him half a crown. The borrower said he'd live onit for a week. Then he found out that, despite being a gentleman, therewas one little thing he could do well. He could make a roast duck fallapart as though by magic, and he could handle a full-sized carving-knifewith the ease and the grace of a duchess handling a fan. Wow he'sgetting eight hundred a year--pounds again--and all he can eat."
From the eating-house Leighton took Lewis to his club. He sought out asmall room that is called the smoking-room to this day, relic of an agewhen smokers were still a race apart. In the corner sat an old manreading. He was neatly dressed in black. Beside him was a decanter ofport.
Leighton led the way back to the lounge-room.
"Well, did you see him?"
"The old man?" said Lewis. "Yes, I saw him."
"That's Old Ivory," said Leighton. "He's an honorable. He was cursed bythe premature birth--to him--of several brothers. In other words, he'sthat saddest of British institutions, a younger son. His brothers, theother younger sons, are still eating out of the hand of their eldestbrother, Lord Bellim. But not Old Ivory. He bought himself an annuityten years ago. How did he do it? Well, he had enough intelligence torealize that he hadn't much. He decided he could learn to shoot well atfifty yards. He did. Then he went after elephants, and got 'em, in a daywhen they shipped ivory not by the tusk, but by the ton, and sold it atfifteen shillings a pound." As they walked back to the flat, Leightonsaid: "Now, take your time and think. Is there anything you know how todo well?"
"Nothing," stammered Lewis--"nothing except goats."
"Ah, yes, goats," said Leighton, but his thoughts were not on goats.Back in his den, he took from a drawer in the great oak desk the kidthat Lewis had molded in clay and its broken legs, for another had gone.He looked at the fragments thoughtfully. "To my mind," he said, "thereis little doubt but that you could become efficient at terra-cottadesigning; you might even become a sculptor."
"A sculptor!" repeated Lewis, as though he voiced a dream.
Leighton paid no attention to the interruption. "I hesitate, however, togive you a start toward art because you carry an air of success withyou. One predicts success for you too--too confidently. And success inart is a formidable source of danger."
"Success a source of danger, Dad?"
"In art," corrected Leighton.
"Yesterday," he continued, "you wanted to stop at a shop window, and Iwouldn't let you. The window contained an inane repetition display ofthirty horrible prints at two and six each of Lalan's 'Triumph.'"Leighton sprang to his
feet. "God! Poster lithographs at two and six!Boy, Lalan's 'Triumph' _was_ a triumph once. He turned it into a meresuccess. Before the paint was dry, he let them commercialize hispicture, not in sturdy, faithful prints, but in that--that rubbish."
Leighton strode up and down the room, his arms behind him, his eyes onthe floor.
"Taking art into the poor man's home, they call it. Bah! If you multiplythe greatest glory that the genius of man ever imprisoned, and put itall over the walls of your house,--bath, kitchen and under thebed,--you'll find the mean level of that glory is reduced to the termsof the humblest of household utensils."
A smile nickered in Lewis's eyes, but Leighton did not look up.
"Art is never a constant," he continued. "It feeds on spirit, and spiritis evanescent. A truly great picture should be seen by the comparativefew. What every one possesses is necessarily a commonplace.
"And now, to get back. I have never talked seriously to you before; Imay never do it again. The essence, the distinctive finesse, ofbreeding, lies in a trained gaiety and an implied sincerity. But what Imust say to you is this: Even in this leveling age there are a few of uswho look with terror upon an incipient socialism; who believe money asmoney to be despicable and food and clothing, incidental; who abhorequality, cherish sorrow and suffering and look uponeducation--knowledgeof living before God and man--as the ultimate and only source ofcontent. That's a creed. I'd like to have you think on it. I'd like tohave my boy join the Old Guard. Do you begin to see how success in artmay become a danger?"
"Yes," said Lewis, "I think I do. I think you mean that--that in sellingart one is apt to sell one's self."
"H--m--m!" said Leighton, "you are older than I am. I'll take you toParis to-morrow."
Nelton knocked, and threw open the door without waiting for an answer.
"Her ladyship," he announced.
Lady Derl entered. She was looking very girlish in a close-fitting,tailored walking-suit. The skirt was short--the first short skirt toreach London. Beneath it could be seen her very pretty feet. They walkedexcitedly.
Lady Derl was angry. She held a large card in her hand. She tore it intobits and tossed it at Leighton's feet.
"Glen," she said, "don't you ever dare to send me one of your engraved'regrets' again. Why--why you've been rude to me!"
Leighton hung his head. For one second Lewis had the delightfulsensation of taking his father for a brother and in trouble.
"H lne," said Leighton. "I apologize humbly and abjectly. I thought itwould amuse you."
"Apologies are hateful," said Lady Derl. "They're so final. To see afine young quarrel, in the prime of life, die by lightning--sad! sad!"She started drawing off her gloves. "Let's have tea." As she poured teafor them she asked, "And what's the real reason you two aren't coming tomy dinner?"
Leighton picked up the maimed kid and laid it on the tea-tray. He noddedtoward Lewis.
"He made it, I'm going to gamble a bit on him."
"Poor little thing!" said Lady Derl, poking the two-legged kid with herfinger.
"I'm going to put him under Le Brux,--Saint Anthony,--if he'll takehim," continued Leighton. "We leave for Paris to-morrow."
"Under Saint Anthony?" repeated Lady Derl. "H--m--m! Perhaps you areright. But Blanche, Berthe, and Vi will hold it against me."
When Lewis was alone with his father, he asked: "Does Lady Derl belongto the Old Guard?"
"You wouldn't think it, but she does," said Leighton,--"inside."