Part 20

"I never knew two brothers who were equal," said Carvel, in reflective tones. "I do not know why the ideal freedom and equality, attaching to the ideal brothers, should not be as good as any other visionary aim for tangible earthly government; but it certainly does not seem so easy of realization, nor so sound in the working, as our good English principle that exceptions prove the rule, and that the more exceptions there are the better the rule will be."

"Is that speech an attack upon American freedom?" asked the professor, laughing a little. "I believe Mr. Griggs is an American."

"No, indeed. Why should I attack American freedom?" said John.

"American freedom is not so easily attacked," I remarked. "It eludes definition and rejects political paradox. No one ever connects our republic with the fashionable liberty-fraternity-and-equality doctrines of European emancipation; still less with the communistic idea that, although men have very different capacities for originating things, all men have an equal right to destroy them."

"Griggs is mounted upon his hobby," remarked John Carvel, stretching his feet out towards the fire. The professor turned the light of his spectacles upon me, and puffed a cloud of smoke.

"Are you a political enthusiast and a rider of hobby-horses, Mr. Griggs?" he asked.

"I do not know; you must ask our host."

"Pardon me. I think you know very well," said the professor. "I should say you belonged to a class of persons who know very well what they think."

"How do you judge?"

"That is, of all questions a man can ask, the most difficult to answer. How do you judge of anything?"

"By applying the test of past experience to present fact," I replied.

"Then past experience is that by which I judge. How can you expect me to tell you the whole of my past experience, in order that you may understand how my judgment is formed? It would take years."

"You are a pair of very singular men," remarked John Carvel. "You seem to take to argument as fish to the water. You ought to be successful in a school of walking philosophers."

John seemed more depressed than I had ever seen him, and only made an observation from time to time, as though to make a show of hospitality. The professor interested me, but I could see that we were boring Carvel. The conversation languished, and before long the latter proposed that we should go into the drawing-room for half an hour before bed-time.

We found the ladies seated around the fire. Their voices fell suddenly as we entered the room, and all of them looked towards John and the professor, as though expecting something. It struck me that they had been talking of some matter which was not intended for our ears.

"We have been making plans for Christmas," said Mrs. Carvel, as though to break the awkward silence that followed our entrance.

VIII.

Early on the following morning John Carvel came to my room. He looked less anxious than on the previous night, but he was evidently not altogether his former self.

"Would you care to drive to the station and meet those boys?" he asked, cheerfully.

The weather was bright and frosty, and I was glad enough of an excuse for being alone for half an hour with my friend. I assented, therefore, to his proposition, and presently we were rattling along the hard road through the park. The hoar-frost was on the trees and on the blue-green frozen grass beneath them, and on the reeds and sedges beside the pond, which was overspread with a sheet of black ice. The breath flew from the horses' nostrils in white clouds to right and left, and the low morning sun flashed back from the harness, and made the little icicles and laces of frost upon the trees shine like diamonds.

"Carvel," I said presently, as we spun past the lodge, through the great iron gates, "I am not inquisitive, but it is easy to see that there is something going on in your house which is not agreeable to you. Will you tell me frankly whether you would like me to go away?"

"Not for worlds," my companion ejaculated, and he turned a shade paler as he spoke. "I would rather tell you all about it--only"---- He paused.

"Don't," said I. "I don't want to know. I merely thought you might prefer to be left free of outsiders at present."

"We hardly look upon you as an outsider, Griggs," said John, quietly. "You have been here so much and we have been so intimate that you are almost like one of the family. Besides, you know this young nephew of my wife's, Paul Patoff; and your knowing him will make matters a little easier. I am not at all sure I shall like him."

"I think you will. At all events, I can give you some idea of him."

"I wish you would," answered John.

"He is a thorough Russian in his ideas and an Englishman in appearance,--perhaps you might say he is more like a Scotchman. He is fair, with blue eyes, a brown mustache, and a prominent nose. He is angular in his movements and rather tall. He has a remarkable talent for languages, and is regarded as a very promising diplomatist. His temper is violent and changeable, but he has excellent manners and is full of tact. I should call him an extremely clever fellow in a general way, and he has done wisely in the selection of his career."

"That is not a bad description. Is there anything against him?"