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Page 58
"Very good," I said, rather angrily too. "But allow me to say this
first. This is a place of muddle. One is worked too hard, and shown too
many things, till one is hopelessly confused. But I had rather have your
criticism first, and then I will make mine."
"Very well!" said Amroth facing me, looking at me fixedly with his blue
eyes, and his nostrils a little distended. "The mischief lies in your
temperament. You are precocious, and you are volatile. You have had
special opportunities, and in a way you have used them well, but your
head has been somewhat turned by your successes. You came to that place
yonder, with Cynthia, with a sense of superiority. You thought yourself
too good for it, and instead of just trying to see into the minds and
hearts of the people you met, you despised them; instead of learning,
you tried to teach. You took a feeble interest in Cynthia, made a pet of
her; then, when I took you away, you forgot all about her. Even the
great things I was allowed to show you did not make you humble. You took
them as a compliment to your powers. And so when you had your chance to
go back to help Cynthia, you thought out no plan, you asked no advice.
You went down in a very self-sufficient mood, expecting that everything
would be easy."
"That is not true," I said. "I was very much perplexed."
"It is only too true," said Amroth; "you enjoyed your perplexity; I
daresay you called it faith to yourself! It was that which made you
weak. You lost your temper with Lucius, you made a miserable fight of
it--and even in prison you could not recognise that you were in fault.
You did better at the trial--I fully admit that you behaved well
there--but the fault is in this, that this girl gave you her heart and
her confidence, and you despised them. Your mind was taken up with other
things; a very little more, and you would be fit for the intellectual
paradise. There," he said, "I have nearly done! You may be angry if you
will, but that is the truth. You have a wrong idea of this place. It is
not plain sailing here. Life here is a very serious, very intricate,
very difficult business. The only complications which are removed are
the complications of the body; but one has anxious and trying
responsibilities all the same, and you have trifled with them. You must
not delude yourself. You have many good qualities. You have some
courage, much ingenuity, keen interests, and a good deal of
conscientiousness; but you have the makings of a dilettante, the
readiness to delude yourself that the particular little work you are
engaged in is excessively and peculiarly important. You have got the
proportion all wrong."
I had a feeling of intense anger and bitterness at all this; but as he
spoke, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and I saw that Amroth was
right. I wrestled with myself in silence.
Presently I said, "Amroth, I believe you are right, though I think at
this moment that you have stated all this rather harshly. But I do see
that it can be no pleasure to you to state it, though I fear I shall
never regain my pleasure in your company."
"There," said Amroth, "that is sentiment again!"
This put me into a great passion.
"Very well," I said, "I will say no more. Perhaps you will just be good
enough to tell me what I am to do with Cynthia, and where I am to go,
and then I will trouble you no longer."
"Oh," said Amroth with a sneer, "I have no doubt you can find some very
nice semidetached villas hereabouts. Why not settle down, and make the
poor girl a little mote worthy of yourself?"
At this I turned from him in great anger, and left him standing where he
was. If ever I hated any one, I hated Amroth at that moment. I went back
to Cynthia.
"I have come back to you, dear," I said. "Can you trust me and go with
me? No one here seems inclined to help us, and we must just help each
other."
At which Cynthia rose and flung herself into my arms.
"That was what I wanted all along," she said, "to feel that I could be
of use too. You will see how brave I can be. I can go anywhere with you
and do anything, because I think I have loved you all the time."
"And you must forgive me, Cynthia," I said, "as well. For I did not know
till this moment that I loved you, but I know it now; and I shall love
you to the end."
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