"Not very deeply; they are not of a kind to concern me much. I can
console you as to one of them. I have always recognized him as a
gentleman, in your sense of the word. He proves to be so--one of
considerable position, in fact. As to his approaching trial, I have
spoken with Lord Worthington about it, and also with the lawyers who
have charge of the case; and they say positively that, owing to
certain proofs not being in the hands of the police, a defence can
be set up that will save him from imprisonment."
"There is no such defence possible," said Lucian, angrily.
"Perhaps not. As far as I understand it, it is rather an aggravation
of the offence than an excuse for it. But if they imprison him it
will make no difference. He can console himself by the certainty
that I will marry him at once when he is released."
Lucian's face lengthened. He abandoned the argument, and said,
blankly, "I cannot suppose that you would allow yourself to be
deceived. If he is a gentleman of position, that of course alters
the case completely."
"Very little indeed from my point of view. Hardly at all. And now,
worldly cousin Lucian, I have satisfied you that I am not going to
connect you by marriage with a butcher, bricklayer, or other member
of the trades from which Cashel's profession, as you warned me, is
usually recruited. Stop a moment. I am going to do justice to you.
You want to say that my unworldly friend Lucian is far more deeply
concerned at seeing the phoenix of modern culture throw herself away
on a man unworthy of her."
"That IS what I mean to say, except that you put it too modestly. It
is a case of the phoenix, not only of modern culture, but of natural
endowment and of every happy accident of the highest civilization,
throwing herself away on a man specially incapacitated by his tastes
and pursuits from comprehending her or entering the circle in which
she moves."
"Listen to me patiently, Lucian, and I will try to explain the
mystery to you, leaving the rest of the world to misunderstand me as
it pleases. First, you will grant me that even a phoenix must marry
some one in order that she may hand on her torch to her children.
Her best course would be to marry another phoenix; but as she--poor
girl!--cannot appreciate even her own phoenixity, much less that of
another, she must perforce be content with a mere mortal. Who is the
mortal to be? Not her cousin Lucian; for rising young politicians
must have helpful wives, with feminine politics and powers of
visiting and entertaining; a description inapplicable to the
phoenix. Not, as you just now suggested, a man of letters. The
phoenix has had her share of playing helpmeet to a man of letters,
and does not care to repeat that experience. She is sick to death of
the morbid introspection and womanish self-consciousness of poets,
novelists, and their like. As to artists, all the good ones are
married; and ever since the rest have been able to read in hundreds
of books that they are the most gifted and godlike of men, they are
become almost as intolerable as their literary flatterers. No,
Lucian, the phoenix has paid her debt to literature and art by the
toil of her childhood. She will use and enjoy both of them in future
as best she can; but she will never again drudge in their
laboratories. You say that she might at least have married a
gentleman. But the gentlemen she knows are either amateurs of the
arts, having the egotism of professional artists without their
ability, or they are men of pleasure, which means that they are
dancers, tennis-players, butchers, and gamblers. I leave the
nonentities out of the question. Now, in the eyes of a phoenix, a
prize-fighter is a hero in comparison with a wretch who sets a leash
of greyhounds upon a hare. Imagine, now, this poor phoenix meeting
with a man who had never been guilty of self-analysis in his
life--who complained when he was annoyed, and exulted when he was
glad, like a child (and unlike a modern man)--who was honest and
brave, strong and beautiful. You open your eyes, Lucian: you do not
do justice to Cashel's good looks. He is twenty-five, and yet there
is not a line in his face. It is neither thoughtful, nor poetic, nor
wearied, nor doubting, nor old, nor self-conscious, as so many of
his contemporaries' faces are--as mine perhaps is. The face of a
pagan god, assured of eternal youth, and absolutely disqualified
from comprehending 'Faust.' Do you understand a word of what I am
saying, Lucian?"