They were bound for Italy; so Alan
had decided. Turning over in his mind the pros
and cons of the situation, he had wisely determined
that Herminia’s confinement had better take place
somewhere else than in England. The difficulties
and inconveniences which block the way in English
lodgings would have been well-nigh insufferable; in
Italy, people would only know that an English signora
and her husband had taken apartments for a month or
two in some solemn old palazzo. To Herminia,
indeed, this expatriation at such a moment was in
many ways to the last degree distasteful; for her own
part, she hated the merest appearance of concealment,
and would rather have flaunted the open expression
of her supreme moral faith before the eyes of all
London. But Alan pointed out to her the many
practical difficulties, amounting almost to impossibilities,
which beset such a course; and Herminia, though it
was hateful to her thus to yield to the immoral prejudices
of a false social system, gave way at last to Alan’s
repeated expression of the necessity for prudent and
practical action. She would go with him to Italy,
she said, as a proof of her affection and her confidence
in his judgment, though she still thought the right
thing was to stand by her guns fearlessly, and fight
it out to the bitter end undismayed in England.
On the morning of their departure,
Alan called to see his father, and explain the situation.
He felt some explanation was by this time necessary.
As yet no one in London knew anything officially
as to his relations with Herminia; and for Herminia’s
sake, Alan had hitherto kept them perfectly private.
But now, further reticence was both useless and undesirable;
he determined to make a clean breast of the whole
story to his father. It was early for a barrister
to be leaving town for the Easter vacation; and though
Alan had chambers of his own in Lincoln’s Inn,
where he lived by himself, he was so often in and
out of the house in Harley Street that his absence
from London would at once have attracted the parental
attention.
Dr. Merrick was a model of the close-shaven
clear-cut London consultant. His shirt-front
was as impeccable as his moral character was spotless in
the way that Belgravia and Harley Street still understood
spotlessness. He was tall and straight, and
unbent by age; the professional poker which he had
swallowed in early life seemed to stand him in good
stead after sixty years, though his hair had whitened
fast, and his brow was furrowed with most deliberative
wrinkles. So unapproachable he looked, that not
even his own sons dared speak frankly before him.
His very smile was restrained; he hardly permitted
himself for a moment that weak human relaxation.
Alan called at Harley Street immediately
after breakfast, just a quarter of an hour before
the time allotted to his father’s first patient.
Dr. Merrick received him in the consulting-room with
an interrogative raising of those straight, thin eyebrows.
The mere look on his face disconcerted Alan.
With an effort the son began and explained his errand.
His father settled himself down into his ample and
dignified professional chair old oak round-backed, and
with head half turned, and hands folded in front of
him, seemed to diagnose with rapt attention this singular
form of psychological malady. When Alan paused
for a second between his halting sentences and floundered
about in search of a more delicate way of gliding
over the thin ice, his father eyed him closely with
those keen, gray orbs, and after a moment’s
hesitation put in a “Well, continue,”
without the faintest sign of any human emotion.
Alan, thus driven to it, admitted awkwardly bit by
bit that he was leaving London before the end of term
because he had managed to get himself into delicate
relations with a lady.
Dr. Merrick twirled his thumbs, and
in a colorless voice enquired, without relaxing a
muscle of his set face,
“What sort of lady, please? A lady of
the ballet?”
“Oh, no!” Alan cried,
giving a little start of horror. “Quite
different from that. A real lady.”
“They always are real ladies, for
the most part brought down by untoward circumstances,”
his father responded coldly. “As a rule,
indeed, I observe, they’re clergyman’s
daughters.”
“This one is,” Alan answered,
growing hot. “In point of fact, to prevent
your saying anything you might afterwards regret, I
think I’d better mention the lady’s name.
It’s Miss Herminia Barton, the Dean of Dunwich’s
daughter.”
His father drew a long breath.
The corners of the clear-cut mouth dropped down for
a second, and the straight, thin eyebrows were momentarily
elevated. But he gave no other overt sign of
dismay or astonishment.
“That makes a great difference,
of course,” he answered, after a long pause.
“She is a lady, I admit. And she’s
been to Girton.”
“She has,” the son replied,
scarcely knowing how to continue.
Dr. Merrick twirled his thumbs once
more, with outward calm, for a minute or two.
This was most inconvenient in a professional family.
“And I understand you to say,”
he went on in a pitiless voice, “Miss Barton’s
state of health is such that you think it advisable
to remove her at once for her confinement,
to Italy?”
“Exactly so,” Alan answered,
gulping down his discomfort.
The father gazed at him long and steadily.
“Well, I always knew you were
a fool,” he said at last with paternal candor;
“but I never yet knew you were quite such a fool
as this business shows you. You’ll have
to marry the girl now in the end. Why the devil
couldn’t you marry her outright at first, instead
of seducing her?”
“I did not seduce her,”
Alan answered stoutly. “No man on earth
could ever succeed in seducing that stainless woman.”
Dr. Merrick stared hard at him without
changing his attitude on his old oak chair.
Was the boy going mad, or what the dickens did he
mean by it?
“You have seduced her,”
he said slowly. “And she is not stainless
if she has allowed you to do so.”
“It is the innocence which survives
experience that I value, not the innocence which dies
with it,” Alan answered gravely.
“I don’t understand these
delicate distinctions,” Dr. Merrick interposed
with a polite sneer. “I gather from what
you said just now that the lady is shortly expecting
her confinement; and as she isn’t married, you
tell me, I naturally infer that somebody must
have seduced her either you, or some other
man.”
It was Alan’s turn now to draw
himself up very stiffly.
“I beg your pardon,” he
answered; “you have no right to speak in such
a tone about a lady in Miss Barton’s position.
Miss Barton has conscientious scruples about the
marriage-tie, which in theory I share with her; she
was unwilling to enter into any relations with me
except in terms of perfect freedom.”
“I see,” the old man went
on with provoking calmness. “She preferred,
in fact, to be, not your wife, but your mistress.”
Alan rose indignantly. “Father,”
he said, with just wrath, “if you insist upon
discussing this matter with me in such a spirit, I
must refuse to stay here. I came to tell you
the difficulty in which I find myself, and to explain
to you my position. If you won’t let me
tell you in my own way, I must leave the house without
having laid the facts before you.”
The father spread his two palms in
front of him with demonstrative openness. “As
you will,” he answered. “My time
is much engaged. I expect a patient at a quarter
past ten. You must be brief, please.”
Alan made one more effort. In
a very earnest voice, he began to expound to his father
Herminia’s point of view. Dr. Merrick
listened for a second or two in calm impatience.
Then he consulted his watch. “Excuse
me,” he said. “I have just three
minutes. Let us get at once to the practical
part the therapeutics of the case, omitting
its aetiology: You’re going to take the
young lady to Italy. When she gets there, will
she marry you? And do you expect me to help
in providing for you both after this insane adventure?”
Alan’s face was red as fire.
“She will not marry me when she gets to
Italy,” he answered decisively. “And
I don’t want you to do anything to provide for
either of us.”
The father looked at him with the
face he was wont to assume in scanning the appearance
of a confirmed monomaniac. “She will not
marry you,” he answered slowly; “and you
intend to go on living with her in open concubinage!
A lady of birth and position! Is that your
meaning?”
“Father,” Alan cried despairingly,
“Herminia would not consent to live with me
on any other terms. To her it would be disgraceful,
shameful, a sin, a reproach, a dereliction of principle.
She couldn’t go back upon her whole past
life. She lives for nothing else but the emancipation
of women.”
“And you will aid and abet her
in her folly?” the father asked, looking up
sharply at him. “You will persist in this
evil course? You will face the world and openly
defy morality?”
“I will not counsel the woman
I most love and admire to purchase her own ease by
proving false to her convictions,” Alan answered
stoutly.
Dr. Merrick gazed at the watch on
his table once more. Then he rose and rang the
bell. “Patient here?” he asked curtly.
“Show him in then at once. And, Napper,
if Mr. Alan Merrick ever calls again, will you tell
him I’m out? and your mistress as
well, and all the young ladies.” He turned
coldly to Alan. “I must guard your mother
and sisters at least,” he said in a chilly voice,
“from the contamination of this woman’s
opinions.”
Alan bowed without a word, and left
the room. He never again saw the face of his
father.