Clara Hopgood

'Well, father, I hope you are none the worse for the ducking,' he

said gaily. 'The next time you come to York you'd better bring

another suit of clothes with you.'

Baruch turned round uneasily and did not answer immediately. He had

had a narrow escape from drowning.

'Nothing of much consequence. Is your friend all right?'

'Oh, yes; I was anxious about her, for she is not very strong, but I

do not think she will come to much harm. I made them light a fire in

her room.' 'Are they drying my clothes?' 'I'll go and see.'

He went away and encountered the elder Miss Masters, who told him

that her sister, feeling no ill effects from the plunge, had

determined to go home at once, and in fact was nearly ready.

Benjamin waited, and presently she came downstairs, smiling.

'Nothing the matter. I owe it to you, however, that I am not now in

another world.'

Benjamin was in an ecstasy, and considered himself bound to accompany

her to her door.

Meanwhile, Baruch lay upstairs alone in no very happy temper. He

heard the conversation below, and knew that his son had gone. In all

genuine love there is something of ferocious selfishness. The

perfectly divine nature knows how to keep it in check, and is even

capable--supposing it to be a woman's nature--of contentment if the

loved one is happy, no matter with what or with whom; but the nature

only a little less than divine cannot, without pain, endure the

thought that it no longer owns privately and exclusively that which

it loves, even when it loves a child, and Baruch was particularly

excusable, considering his solitude. Nevertheless, he had learned a

little wisdom, and, what was of much greater importance, had learned

how to use it when he needed it. It had been forced upon him; it was

an adjustment to circumstances, the wisest wisdom. It was not

something without any particular connection with him; it was rather

the external protection built up from within to shield him where he

was vulnerable; it was the answer to questions which had been put to

HIM, and not to those which had been put to other people. So it came

to pass that, when he said bitterly to himself that, if he were at

that moment lying dead at the bottom of the river, Benjamin would

have found consolation very near at hand, he was able to reflect upon

the folly of self-laceration, and to rebuke himself for a complaint

against what was simply the order of Nature, and not a personal

failure.