“Would it seem more hospitable if I didn’t go to Cathedral?” he asked. “Remember, I rank hospitality very high among the cardinal virtues.”
“Then perhaps I had better go to Cathedral,” he said. “But you might have made it easier for me to stop. Well, good-bye; I shall come out before the sermon.”
“I shall devote the time to silent meditation,” said Jack. “Where shall I find cigarettes? I’ve run out.”
“In the smoking-room. But it’s distinctly bad manners to talk about cigarettes to a fellow on his way to church. Have a novel and an iced drink, too, won’t you? Don’t mind me.”
Arthur made his reluctant way across the lawn and disappeared. If Jack had been obliged to be perfectly honest too he would have had to confess that he bore the prospect of a solitary hour with perfect equanimity. He had several things to think about, and he could do it best alone. In the first place, he had received that morning a note from his mother asking him to tear up the letter she had written him, when he received it, unread. Also she would like to see him again before he left Wroxton. This note occupied Jack’s thoughts not a little. When Jeannie had broken in upon his meditations on the bridge the evening before he was doing his best not to draw conclusions, not to formulate in his own mind what his relations with his mother were. He had not known how their talk had moved her, and it was only natural that he should not. For Mrs. Collingwood’s deepest emotions were founded on the cardinal virtues, and the more she was moved the more passionately she felt and expressed horror of what was wrong, and to Jack, with his antipodal nature, this had appeared like hardness. He had wronged her, but his mistake was excusable. For with him, the more his emotions were touched the more human and indulgent he became--a dangerous development, no doubt, but, luckily for the kindliness of the world, a common one, and certainly one that is lovable if we are not too censoriously moral. That Frank should so have failed to act up to the proper reasonable code made him feel the more tenderly toward him, though he regretted it. It was otherwise with his mother. A lapse of this kind blotted tenderness from her mind; had it happened to one she loved, the more complete would have been her horror. The attitude of neither mother nor son is ideal, but the resultant leaves nothing wanting.