Chapter 15

by William Dean Howells

　　"I wasn't fit to be there," persisted Lapham. "Do you want to leave?"he asked, with savage abruptness."Leave?" faltered the young man."Yes; quit the business? Cut the whole connection?""I haven't the remotest idea of it!" cried Corey in amazement. "Why inthe world should I?" "Because you're a gentleman, and I'm not, and itain't right I should be over you. If you want to go, I know someparties that would be glad to get you. I will give you up if you wantto go before anything worse happens, and I shan't blame you. I canhelp you to something better than I can offer you here, and I will.""There's no question of my going, unless you wish it," said Corey. "Ifyou do----""Will you tell your father," interrupted Lapham, "that I had a notionall the time that I was acting the drunken blackguard, and that I'vesuffered for it all day? Will you tell him I don't want him to noticeme if we ever meet, and that I know I'm not fit to associate withgentlemen in anything but a business way, if I am that?""Certainly I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Corey. "I can'tlisten to you any longer. What you say is shocking to me--shocking ina way you can't think.""Why, man!" exclaimed Lapham, with astonishment; "if I can stand it,YOU can!""No," said Corey, with a sick look, "that doesn't follow. You maydenounce yourself, if you will; but I have my reasons for refusing tohear you--my reasons why I CAN'T hear you. If you say another word Imust go away.""I don't understand you," faltered Lapham, in bewilderment, whichabsorbed even his shame."You exaggerate the effect of what has happened," said the young man."It's enough, more than enough, for you to have mentioned the matter tome, and I think it's unbecoming in me to hear you."He made a movement toward the door, but Lapham stopped him with thetragic humility of his appeal. "Don't go yet! I can't let you. I'vedisgusted you,--I see that; but I didn't mean to. I--I take it back.""Oh, there's nothing to take back," said Corey, with a repressedshudder for the abasement which he had seen. "But let us say no moreabout it--think no more. There wasn't one of the gentlemen presentlast night who didn't understand the matter precisely as my father andI did, and that fact must end it between us two."He went out into the larger office beyond, leaving Lapham helpless toprevent his going. It had become a vital necessity with him to thinkthe best of Lapham, but his mind was in a whirl of whatever thoughtswere most injurious. He thought of him the night before in the companyof those ladies and gentlemen, and he quivered in resentment of hisvulgar, braggart, uncouth nature. He recognised his own allegiance tothe exclusiveness to which he was born and bred, as a man perceives hisduty to his country when her rights are invaded. His eye fell on theporter going about in his shirt-sleeves to make the place fast for thenight, and he said to himself that Dennis was not more plebeian thanhis master; that the gross appetites, the blunt sense, the purblindambition, the stupid arrogance were the same in both, and thedifference was in a brute will that probably left the porter thegentler man of the two. The very innocence of Lapham's life in thedirection in which he had erred wrought against him in the young man'smood: it contained the insult of clownish inexperience. Amidst thestings and flashes of his wounded pride, all the social traditions, allthe habits of feeling, which he had silenced more and more by force ofwill during the past months, asserted their natural sway, and he riotedin his contempt of the offensive boor, who was even more offensive inhis shame than in his trespass. He said to himself that he was aCorey, as if that were somewhat; yet he knew that at the bottom of hisheart all the time was that which must control him at last, and whichseemed sweetly to be suffering his rebellion, secure of his submissionin the end. It was almost with the girl's voice that it seemed toplead with him, to undo in him, effect by effect, the work of hisindignant resentment, to set all things in another and fairer light, togive him hopes, to suggest palliations, to protest against injustices.It WAS in Lapham's favour that he was so guiltless in the past, and nowCorey asked himself if it were the first time he could have wished aguest at his father's table to have taken less wine; whether Lapham wasnot rather to be honoured for not knowing how to contain his follywhere a veteran transgressor might have held his tongue. He askedhimself, with a thrill of sudden remorse, whether, when Lapham humbledhimself in the dust so shockingly, he had shown him the sympathy towhich such ABANDON had the right; and he had to own that he had met himon the gentlemanly ground, sparing himself and asserting thesuperiority of his sort, and not recognising that Lapham's humiliationcame from the sense of wrong, which he had helped to accumulate uponhim by superfinely standing aloof and refusing to touch him.He shut his desk and hurried out into the early night, not to goanywhere, but to walk up and down, to try to find his way out of thechaos, which now seemed ruin, and now the materials out of which fineactions and a happy life might be shaped. Three hours later he stoodat Lapham's door.At times what he now wished to do had seemed for ever impossible, andagain it had seemed as if he could not wait a moment longer. He hadnot been careless, but very mindful of what he knew must be thefeelings of his own family in regard to the Laphams, and he had notconcealed from himself that his family had great reason and justice ontheir side in not wishing him to alienate himself from their commonlife and associations. The most that he could urge to himself was thatthey had not all the reason and justice; but he had hesitated anddelayed because they had so much. Often he could not make it appearright that he should merely please himself in what chiefly concernedhimself. He perceived how far apart in all their experiences andideals the Lapham girls and his sisters were; how different Mrs. Laphamwas from his mother; how grotesquely unlike were his father and Lapham;and the disparity had not always amused him.He had often taken it very seriously, and sometimes he said that hemust forego the hope on which his heart was set. There had been manytimes in the past months when he had said that he must go no further,and as often as he had taken this stand he had yielded it, upon this orthat excuse, which he was aware of trumping up. It was part of thecomplication that he should be unconscious of the injury he might bedoing to some one besides his family and himself; this was the defectof his diffidence; and it had come to him in a pang for the first timewhen his mother said that she would not have the Laphams think shewished to make more of the acquaintance than he did; and then it hadcome too late. Since that he had suffered quite as much from the fearthat it might not be as that it might be so; and now, in the mood,romantic and exalted, in which he found himself concerning Lapham, hewas as far as might be from vain confidence. He ended the question inhis own mind by affirming to himself that he was there, first of all,to see Lapham and give him an ultimate proof of his own perfect faithand unabated respect, and to offer him what reparation this involvedfor that want of sympathy--of humanity--which he had shown.