212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 223
at the danger which possibly hung over that gentleman. Marriage
ceremonies are dangerous risks in jest or in earnest. You can't
pretend to marry even a poor old bankrupt lodging-house keeper's
daughter without some risk of being brought subsequently to book.
If you have a vulgar wife alive, and afterwards choose to leave her
and marry an earl's niece, you will come to trouble, however well
connected you are and highly placed in society. If you have had
thirty thousand pounds with Wife No. 2, and have to pay it back
on a sudden, the payment may be inconvenient. You may be tried
for bigamy, and sentenced goodness knows to what punishment.
At any rate, if the matter is made public, and you are a most respectable
man, moving in the highest scientific and social circles,
those circles may be disposed to request you to walk out of their
circumference. A novelist, I know, ought to have no likes, dislikes,
pity, partiality for his characters ; but I declare I cannot help feeling
a respectful compassion for a gentleman who, in consequence of
a youthful, and, I am sure, sincerely regretted folly, may be liable
to lose his fortune, his place in society, and his considerable practice.
Punishment hasn't a right to come with such a pede claudo. There
ought to be limitations ; and it is shabby and revengeful of Justice
to present her little bill when it has been more than twenty years
owing. . . . Having had his talk out with the Little Sister, having
a long past crime suddenly taken down from the shelf; having a
remorse long since supposed to be dead and buried, suddenly starting
up in the most blustering, boisterous, inconvenient manner;
having a rage and terror tearing him within ; I can fancy this most
respectable physician going about his day's work, and most sincerely
sympathise with him. Who is to heal the physician ? Is he not
more sick at heart than most of his patients that day 1 He has to
listen to Lady Megrim cackling for half-an-hour at least, and describing
her little ailments. He has to listen, and never once to
dare to say, " Confound you, old chatterbox ! What are you
prating about your ailments to me, who am suffering real torture
whilst I am smirking in your face ?" He has to wear the inspiriting
smile, to breathe the gentle joke, to console, to whisper hope,
to administer remedy; and all day, perhaps, he sees no one so
utterly sick, so sad, so despairing as himself.
The first person on whom he had to practise hypocrisy that day
was his own son, who chose to come to breakfast—a meal of which
son and father seldom now partook in company. " What does he
know, and what does he suspect ?" are the father's thoughts ; but a
louring gloom is on Philip's face, and the father's eyes look into the
son's but cannot penetrate their darkness.
" Did you stay late last night, Philip ?" says papa.