Shelton

“ Shelton felt that he was referring to the leaf in his mental pocket-book covered with the anecdotes, figures, and facts about that lady. “The old ogre means,” thought he, “that I'm lucky because his leaf is blank about Antonia.” But the old baronet had turned, with his smile, and his sardonic, well-bred air, to listen to a bit of scandal on the other side.
The two men to Shelton's left were talking.
“What! You don't collect anything? How's that? Everybody collects something. I should be lost without my pictures.” ”

“ Paramor, pausing under one of Nelson's lions and taking Shelton by a button. "Truth 's the very devil!"
He stood there, very straight, his eyes haunting his nephew's face; there seemed to Shelton a touching muddle in his optimism—a muddle of tenderness and of intolerance, of truth and second-handedness. Like the lion above him, he seemed to be defying Life to make him look at her. ”

“ Shelton:
“Gracious madam, may I be permitted to speak with your charge?”
“It is not the custom for one prisoner to hold converse with another, young sir,” replied Mrs. Shelton. “But, as ye are enemies, I will indulge thy request, albeit ye speak that I may hear all.”
“I thank you, madam, for your courtesy,” replied the youth bowing. “Mistress Francis, how fare you?”
“Well, Master Devereaux,” answered Francis. “That is,” she added, “as well as one may fare who rests under the displeasure of the queen.” ”

“ He was quite close when the heap moved and a head, muffled in many grimy folds of some red stuff, swung round to him. Shelton was astonished to find the thing alive. He was more astonished when he discovered the heap to be not only alive, but a woman. ”

“ Shelton never saw his uncle's clerk without marvelling at the prosperity deepening upon his face. In place of the look of harassment which on most faces begins to grow after the age of fifty, his old friend's countenance, as though in sympathy with the nation, had expanded—a little greasily, a little genially, a little coarsely—every time he met it. A contemptuous tolerance for people who were not getting on was spreading beneath its surface; it left each time a deeper feeling that its owner could never be in the wrong. ”

“ Shelton nodded his assent; the piquant callousness of the affair had made him shiver, and furtively he eyed the steely Benjy, whose suavity had never wavered, and who appeared to take a greater interest in some approaching race than in his coming marriage. But Shelton knew from his own sensations that this could not really be the case; it was merely a question of “good form,” the conceit of a superior breeding, the duty not to give oneself away. ”

“ Under the dark foliage, his eyes on the sunlight, he was the type of all those Englishmen who keep their spirits bright and wear their bodies out in the dark places of hard work. "You can't think," he said, showing his teeth in a smile, "how delightful it is to be at home! You learn to love the old country when you're away from it."
Shelton often thought, afterwards; of this diagnosis of the vagabond, for he was always stumbling on instances of that power of subtle criticism which was the young foreigner's prime claim to be "a most awfully interesting" and perhaps a rather shocking person. ”

“ Amidst all the hum of voices and the fumes of smoke, a sense of formality was haunting Shelton. Sandwiched between a Dutchman and a Prussian poet, he could understand neither of his neighbours; so, assuming an intelligent expression, he fell to thinking that an assemblage of free spirits is as much bound by the convention of exchanging their ideas as commonplace people are by the convention of having no ideas to traffic in. He could not help wondering whether, in the bulk, they were not just as dependent on each other as the inhabitants of Kensington ”

“ Shelton's face quivered; he raised his hat, and, turning as abruptly as his senior, proceeded on his way. He had been playing in a comedy that could only have been played in England. He could afford to smile now at his past discomfort, having no longer the sense of duty unfulfilled. Everything had been said that was right and proper to be said, in the way that we such things should say. No violence had been done; he could afford to smile—smile at himself, at Mr. Dennant, at to-morrow; smile at the sweet aroma of the earth, the shy, unwilling sweetness that only rain brings forth. ”

“ He gathered this by intuition rather than from conversation; for conversation naturally tabooed such questions, and was carried on in the loud and cheerful tones peculiar to people of good breeding. Shelton had never been able to acquire this tone, and he could not help feeling that the inability made him more or less an object of suspicion. The atmosphere struck him as it never had before, causing him to feel a doubt of his gentility. Could a man suffer from passion, heart-searchings, or misgivings, and remain a gentleman? ”

“ He again wrung his patron's hand in his damp grasp, and, going out, left Shelton with an odd sensation in his throat. “You will do me the justice to remember that I have never asked you for anything.” The phrase seemed strange, and his mind flew back over all this queer acquaintanceship. It was a fact: from the beginning to the end the youth had never really asked for anything. Shelton sat down on his bed, and began to read the letter in his hand. ”

“ The tramp—for by his boots he could hardly have been better—hesitated.
“When you've travelled like me,” he said, as if resolved to speak the truth, “you acquire an instinct in choosing to whom and how you speak. It is necessity that makes the law; if you want to live you must learn all that sort of thing to make face against life.”
Shelton, who himself possessed a certain subtlety, could not but observe the complimentary nature of these words. ”

“ And, slowly taking up his glass, Shelton drank; the sense of well-being was upon him. His superiority to these his fellow-members soothed him. He saw through all the sham of this club life, the meanness of this worship of success, the sham of kid-gloved novelists, “good form,” and the terrific decency of our education. It was soothing thus to see through things, soothing thus to be superior ”

“ The train whistled loudly, and Shelton reverted to his paper. This time he crossed his legs, determined to enjoy the latest murder; once more he found himself looking at the vagrant's long-nosed, mocking face. "That fellow," he thought, "has seen and felt ten times as much as I, although he must be ten years younger."
He turned for distraction to the landscape, with its April clouds, trim hedgerows, homely coverts. But strange ideas would come, and he was discontented with himself; the conversation he had had, the personality of this young foreigner, disturbed him. ”

“ Shelton bowed above his blanket, but the parson did not smile.
"We live in very dangerous times," he said, "and it grieves me when a man of your standing panders to these notions."
"Those," said Shelton, "whom the shoe does n't pinch make this rule of morality, and thrust it on to such as the shoe does pinch." ”

“ It was evident that he felt the shock of this discovery, and Shelton understood that personal acquaintance makes a difference, even in a vagabond.
"This is her beat," said the young foreigner, as they passed the illuminated crescent, where nightly the shadows of hypocrites and women fall; and Shelton went from these comments on Christianity to the station of Charing Cross. ”

“ After his journey up from Dover, Shelton was still fathering his luggage at Charing Cross, when the foreign girl passed him, and, in spite of his desire to say something cheering, he could get nothing out but a shame-faced smile. Her figure vanished, wavering into the hurly-burly; one of his bags had gone astray, and so all thought of her soon faded from his mind. His cab, however, overtook the foreign vagrant marching along towards Pall Mall with a curious, lengthy stride—an observant, disillusioned figure. ”

“ Shelton returned to the kitchen, and directly after took leave of the little Frenchman, who said, with a kind of moral button-holing, as if trying to adopt him as a patron:
"Trust me, monsieur; if he comes back—that young man—he shall have your letter without fail. ”

“ Taking Shelton by the lapel, he drew him into the radius of the lamp, where he examined him, smiling a slow smile. “Glad to see you, old chap. I rather like your beard,” he said with genial brusqueness; and nothing, perhaps, could better have summed up his faculty for forming independent judgments which Shelton found so admirable. He made no apology for the smallness of the dinner, which, consisting of eight courses and three wines, served by a butler and one footman, smacked of the same perfection as the furniture ”

“ Shelton thought he had never seen a man who looked more completely as if he had fallen between two stools, and he had inspiration enough to feel that the little barber's intellectual rebellion and the action logically required by it had no more than a bowing acquaintanceship. ”

“ The traveller spread his hands, palms downwards, on the grass and looked at Shelton with, a smile.
“I should say he was a rolling stone,” he said. “It 's odd, I' ve seen white men in Central Africa with a good deal of his look about them.
“Your diagnosis is a good one,” answered Shelton.
“I 'm always sorry for those fellows. There's generally some good in them. They are their own enemies. A bad business to be unable to take pride in anything one does!” ”

“ The soldier smiled.
"By your own admission," he said, "you'll only be creating a fresh set of illusions."
"Yes," answered Shelton, "but at all events they'll be the honest necessities of the present."
The pupils of the soldier's eyes contracted; he evidently felt the conversation slipping into generalities; he answered:
"I can't see how thinking small beer of ourselves is going to do us any good!"
An "At Home!"
Shelton felt in danger of being thought unpractical in giving vent to the remark:
"One must trust one's reason; I never can persuade myself that I believe in what I don't." ”

“ Shelton wondered what these ideals had been, but had no answer ready; so he nodded, and again held out his cigarettes, for, like a true Southerner, the little man had thrown the first away, half smoked.
"The greatest pleasure in life," continued the Frenchman, with a bow, "is to talk a little to a being who is capable of understanding you. At present we have no one here, now that that old actor's dead. Ah! there was a man who was rebellion incarnate! He made rebellion as other men make money, 'c'etait son metier'; when he was no longer capable of active revolution, he made it getting drunk. ”

“ The stained-glass man placed his hands within his pockets, and his bright glance swept over his companion.
"A fellow must have a hobby to give him an interest in life," he said.
"An interest in life?" repeated Shelton grimly; "life itself is good enough for me." ”

“ A gleam of amusement played about the Frenchman's teeth:
"I? Oh, yes, sir! Once upon a time I cherished the hope of emerging; I no longer have illusions. I shave these specimens for a living, and shall shave them till the day of judgment. But leave a letter with me by all means; he will come back. There's an overcoat of his here on which he borrowed money—it's worth more. Oh, yes; he will come back—a youth of principle. Leave a letter with me; I'm always here."
Shelton hesitated, but those last three words, "I'm always here," touched him in their simplicity. ”

“ Human, it sounded, and yet not human, but beastly—horrible. Shelton dropped the candle and clung to the rock beside him. His heart, he thought, stopped absolutely. His very knees buckled under him while he stood there. And then he heard something running, somewhere, even while the cave was playing horribly with the echoes of that scream. ”

“ The more Shelton felt that commands were being given him, the more controversial he naturally became—apart from the merits of this subject, to which he had hardly ever given thought.
“I dare say I'm wrong,” he said, fastening his eyes on the blanket in which his legs were wrapped; “but it seems to me at least an open question whether it's better for the country to be so well populated as to be quite incapable of supporting itself.”
“Surely,” said the parson, whose face regained its pallor, “you're not a Little Englander?” ”

“ He turned and urged old Dutch into a stiff-legged lope that still did not stumble, however rough the ground—and Shelton in his ignorance had no sense at all about galloping a horse over dangerous places. So he came bouncing along through the rocks and sage and buckbrush, showing daylight between himself and the saddle at every jump, and clinging to the horn with one hand, and looking atrociously pleased and satisfied with himself, and plainly expectant of a glowing welcome. ”

“ He seemed so anxious for the honour that Shelton was loath to disappoint him. “I come here pretty often,” he went on, as they ascended a sort of alley rambling darkly between a wall and row of houses.
“Why?” asked Shelton; “it does n't smell too nice.”
The young man threw up his nose and sniffed, as if eager to add any new scent that might be about to his knowledge of life.
“No, that's one of the reasons, you know,” he said; “one must find out. The darkness is jolly, too; anything might happen here. Last week there was a murder; there 's always the chance of one.” ”

“ No fear! Outside potatoes they know nothing, and what they do not understand they dread and they despise—there are millions of that breed. 'Voila la Societe'! The sole quality these people have shown they have is cowardice. I was educated by the Jesuits," he concluded; "it has given me a way of thinking."
Under ordinary circumstances Shelton would have murmured in a well-bred voice, "Ah! quite so," and taken refuge in the columns of the Daily Telegraph. In place of this, for some reason that he did not understand, he looked at the young foreigner, and asked,
"Why do you say all this to me?" ”