A Spinner in the Sun

Haggard and worn, after a sleepless night, Ralph went down-stairs. Heavily upon his young shoulders, he bore the burden of his father's disgrace. Through their kinship, the cowardice and the shirking became a part of his heritage.

There was nothing to be done, for he could not raise his hand in anger against his own father. They must continue to live together, and keep an unbroken front to the world, even though the bond between them had come to be the merest pretence. He despised his father, but no one must ever know it--not even the father whom he despised. Ralph did not guess that his father had read his face.

He saw, now, why Miss Evelina had refused to tell him the man's name, and he honoured her for her reticence. He perceived, too, the hideous temptation with which she was grappling when she begged him to leave her. She had feared that she would tell him, and he must never let her suspect that he knew.

The mighty, unseen forces that lie beneath our daily living were surging through Ralph's troubled soul. Love, hatred, shame, remorse, anger, despair--the words are but symbols of things that work devastation within.

Behold a man, in all outward seeming a gentleman. Observe his courtesy, refinement, and consideration, his perfect self-control. Note his mastery of the lower nature, and see the mind in complete triumph over the beast. Remark his education, the luxury of his surroundings, and the fine quality of his thought. Wonder at the high levels whereon his life is laid, and marvel at the perfect adjustment between him and his circumstances. Subject this man to the onslaught of some vast, cyclonic passion, and see the barriers crumble, then fall. See all the artifice of civilisation swept away at one fell stroke, and behold your gentleman, transformed in an instant into a beast, with all a beast's primeval qualities.

Under stress like this Ralph was fighting to regain his self mastery. He knew that he must force himself to sit opposite his father at the table, and exchange the daily, commonplace talk. No one must ever suspect that anything was amiss--it is this demand of Society which keeps the structure in place and draws the line between civilisation and barbarism. He knew that he never again could look his father straight in the face, that he must always avoid his eyes. It would be hard at first, but Ralph had never given up anything simply because it was difficult.

It was a relief to find that he was downstairs first. Hearing his father's step upon the stair, he thought, would enable him to steel himself more surely to the inevitable meeting. After they had once spoken together, it would be easier. At length they might even become accustomed to the ghastly thing that lay between them and veil it, as it were, with commonplaces.