'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.