These, and more subtle considerations, were the noblest elements of
Bennington de Laney's doubts. But perhaps they were no more potent than
some others which rushed through the breach made for them in the young
man's decision.
He had always lived so much at home that he had come to accept the home
point of view without question. That is to say, he never examined the
value of his parent's ideas, because it never occurred to him to doubt
them. He had no perspective.
In a way, then, he accepted as axioms the social tenets held by his
mother, or the business methods practised by his father. He believed
that elderly men should speak precisely, and in grammatical, but
colourless English. He believed also that people should, in society,
conduct themselves according to the fashion-plate pattern designed by
Mrs. de Laney. He believed these things, not because he was a fool, or
shallow, or lacking in humour, or snobbish, but because nothing had
ever happened to cause him to examine his beliefs closely, that he
might appreciate what they really were. One of these views was, that
cultured people were of a class in themselves, and could not and should
not mix with other classes. Mrs. de Laney entertained a horror of
vulgarity. So deep-rooted was this horror that a remote taint of it was
sufficient to thrust forever outside the pale of her approbation any
unfortunate who exhibited it. She preferred stupidity to common sense,
when the former was allied with good form, and the latter only with
plain kindliness. This was partly instinct and partly the result of
cultivation. She would shrink, with uncontrollable disgust, from any of
the lower classes with whom she came unavoidably in contact. A slight
breach of the conventions earned her distrust of one of her own caste.
As this personal idiosyncrasy fell in line with the de Laney pride, it
was approved by the head of the family. Under encouragement it became
almost a monomania.
Bennington pictured to himself only too vividly the effect of the
Lawtons on this lady's aristocratic prejudices. He knew, only too well,
that Bill Lawton's table manners would not be allowed even in her
kitchen. He could imagine Mrs. Lawton's fatuous conversation in the de
Laney's drawing-room, or Maude Eliza's dressed-up self-consciousness.
The experience of having the three Westerners to dinner just once
would, Bennington knew, drive his lady mother to the verge of nervous
prostration--he remembered his father's one and only experience in
bringing business connections home to lunch--; his imagination failed
to picture the effect of her having to endure them as actual members of
the family! As if this were not bad enough, his restless fancy carried
him a step farther. He perceived the agonies of shame and
mortification, real even though they were conventional, she would have
to endure in the face of society. That the de Laneys, social leaders,
rigid in respectability, should be forced to the humiliation of
acknowledging a misalliance, should be forced to the added humiliation
of confessing that this marriage was not only with a family of inferior
social standing, but with one actually unlettered and vulgar!
Bennington knew only too well the temper of his mother--and of society.