Annie accompanied the doctor's words, which she took in to the last
syllable, with a symphony of conjecture as to how the change in Mr. Peck's
plans, if they prevailed with him, would affect her, and the doctor had
not ceased to speak before she perceived that it would be deliverance
perfect and complete, however inglorious. But the tacit drama so vividly
preoccupied her with its minor questions of how to descend to this escape
with dignity that still she did not speak, and he took up the word again.
"I confess I've had my misgivings about Mr. Peck, and about his final
usefulness in a community like this. In spite of all that Putney can say of
his hard-headedness, I'm afraid that he's a good deal of a dreamer. But I
gave way to Putney, and I hope you'll appreciate what I've done for your
favourite."
"You are very good," she said, in mechanical acknowledgment: her mind was
set so strenuously to break from her dishonest reticence that she did not
know really what she was saying. "Why--why do you call him a dreamer?" She
cast about in that direction at random.
"Why? Well, for one thing, the reason he gave Putney for giving up his
luxuries here: that as long as there was hardship and overwork for underpay
in the world, he must share them. It seems to me that I might as well
say that as long as there were dyspepsia and rheumatism in the world, I
must share them. Then he has a queer notion that he can go back and find
instruction in the working-men--that they alone have the light and the
truth, and know the meaning of life. I don't say anything against them. My
observation and my experience is that if others were as good as they are in
the ratio of their advantages, Mr. Peck needn't go to them for his ideal.
But their conditions warp and dull them; they see things askew, and they
don't see them clearly. I might as well expose myself to the small-pox in
hopes of treating my fellow-sufferers more intelligently."
She could not perceive where his analogies rang false; they only
overwhelmed her with a deeper sense of her own folly.
"But I don't know," he went on, "that a dreamer is such a desperate
character, if you can only keep him from trying to realise his dreams; and
if Mr. Peck consents to stay in Hatboro', perhaps we can manage it." He
drew his chair a little toward the lounge where she reclined, and asked,
with the kindliness that was both personal and professional, "What seems to
be the matter?"