第 五十七 章 · 第57章

. He had hardly parted from Pryer before there occurred another incident

which strengthened his discontent. He had fallen, as I have shown,

among a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basest

metal upon him without his finding it out, so childish and

inexperienced was he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of

the world, schools and universities. Among the bad threepenny pieces

which had been passed off upon him, and which he kept for small hourly

disbursement, was a remark that poor people were much nicer than the

richer and better educated. Ernest now said that he always travelled

third class not because it was cheaper, but because the people whom he

met in third class carriages were so much pleasanter and better

behaved. As for the young men who attended Ernest’s evening classes,

they were pronounced to be more intelligent and better ordered

generally than the average run of Oxford and Cambridge men. Our foolish

young friend having heard Pryer talk to this effect, caught up all he

said and reproduced it _more suo_.

One evening, however, about this time, whom should he see coming along

a small street not far from his own but, of all persons in the world,

Towneley, looking as full of life and good spirits as ever, and if

possible even handsomer than he had been at Cambridge. Much as Ernest

liked him he found himself shrinking from speaking to him, and was

endeavouring to pass him without doing so when Towneley saw him and

stopped him at once, being pleased to see an old Cambridge face. He

seemed for the moment a little confused at being seen in such a

neighbourhood, but recovered himself so soon that Ernest hardly noticed

it, and then plunged into a few kindly remarks about old times. Ernest

felt that he quailed as he saw Towneley’s eye wander to his white

necktie and saw that he was being reckoned up, and rather

disapprovingly reckoned up, as a parson. It was the merest passing

shade upon Towneley’s face, but Ernest had felt it.

Towneley said a few words of common form to Ernest about his profession

as being what he thought would be most likely to interest him, and

Ernest, still confused and shy, gave him for lack of something better

to say his little threepenny-bit about poor people being so very nice.

Towneley took this for what it was worth and nodded assent, whereon

Ernest imprudently went further and said “Don’t you like poor people

very much yourself?”

Towneley gave his face a comical but good-natured screw, and said

quietly, but slowly and decidedly, “No, no, no,” and escaped.

It was all over with Ernest from that moment. As usual he did not know

it, but he had entered none the less upon another reaction. Towneley

had just taken Ernest’s threepenny-bit into his hands, looked at it and

returned it to him as a bad one. Why did he see in a moment that it was

a bad one now, though he had been unable to see it when he had taken it

from Pryer? Of course some poor people were very nice, and always would

be so, but as though scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes he saw

that no one was nicer for being poor, and that between the upper and

lower classes there was a gulf which amounted practically to an

impassable barrier.

That evening he reflected a good deal. If Towneley was right, and

Ernest felt that the “No” had applied not to the remark about poor

people only, but to the whole scheme and scope of his own recently

adopted ideas, he and Pryer must surely be on a wrong track. Towneley

had not argued with him; he had said one word only, and that one of the

shortest in the language, but Ernest was in a fit state for

inoculation, and the minute particle of virus set about working

immediately.

Which did he now think was most likely to have taken the juster view of

life and things, and whom would it be best to imitate, Towneley or

Pryer? His heart returned answer to itself without a moment’s

hesitation. The faces of men like Towneley were open and kindly; they

looked as if at ease themselves, and as though they would set all who

had to do with them at ease as far as might be. The faces of Pryer and

his friends were not like this. Why had he felt tacitly rebuked as soon

as he had met Towneley? Was he not a Christian? Certainly; he believed

in the Church of England as a matter of course. Then how could he be

himself wrong in trying to act up to the faith that he and Towneley

held in common? He was trying to lead a quiet, unobtrusive life of

self-devotion, whereas Towneley was not, so far as he could see, trying

to do anything of the kind; he was only trying to get on comfortably in

the world, and to look and be as nice as possible. And he was nice, and

Ernest knew that such men as himself and Pryer were not nice, and his

old dejection came over him.

Then came an even worse reflection; how if he had fallen among material

thieves as well as spiritual ones? He knew very little of how his money

was going on; he had put it all now into Pryer’s hands, and though

Pryer gave him cash to spend whenever he wanted it, he seemed impatient

of being questioned as to what was being done with the principal. It

was part of the understanding, he said, that that was to be left to

him, and Ernest had better stick to this, or he, Pryer, would throw up

the College of Spiritual Pathology altogether; and so Ernest was cowed

into acquiescence, or cajoled, according to the humour in which Pryer

saw him to be. Ernest thought that further questions would look as if

he doubted Pryer’s word, and also that he had gone too far to be able

to recede in decency or honour. This, however, he felt was riding out

to meet trouble unnecessarily. Pryer had been a little impatient, but

he was a gentleman and an admirable man of business, so his money would

doubtless come back to him all right some day.

Ernest comforted himself as regards this last source of anxiety, but as

regards the other, he began to feel as though, if he was to be saved, a

good Samaritan must hurry up from somewhere—he knew not whence.