Things

								

decoration. That poor little clergyman who lunched here to-day--he came
emanating a certain spiritual peace; but he went away crushed by your
poor opinion of him as an executive. At this moment he is probably
breaking up the current of his life by a conscientious attention to
things.”
Deeply protesting as she was in her heart, something in his hard, clear
look kept her silent, and he went on:
“Your daughter is--to use a big word--an intellectual. For the time
being she is interested only in things of the mind. New ideas, books,
poetry are the great adventures of life to her at present. To all this
you are an obstructionist----”
“There, at least, you are utterly at fault,” cried the poor lady,
with a passion she had not known for years. “I have done everything
in my power to help. I am very ambitious in regard to my children’s
education. Their schools, their teachers----”
“Ay,” said Despard, “you have set out the counters for them but you
have never let them play the game. You were interested in making the
arrangements, but you had no interest at all in the state of mind which
could take advantage of them. Your daughter knows, not only that you
take no thought for such matters yourself, but that every phase of
your contact with her demands her attention for other matters--clothes,
manners, hours, and dates. You have no respect for her preoccupations.
Not once, not twice, but fifty times a day, you interrupt her, with a
caress, or an errand, or more often a reproof. Yesterday, when she was
obviously absorbed in reading that bit of verse to her father, you sent
her up-stairs to change her shoes----”
“They were wet; she would have caught cold.”
“If you had listened you would have seen she had only four more lines
to read. You do all this, not only when she is in your domain, at meals
and in the drawing-room, but you follow her to her own room and go
in without knocking. I venture to say that that child works at night,
for the simple reason that to work in this house during the daytime is
impossible.”
“Really,” said Mrs. Royce, “with the best will in the world I do not
understand you. Celia’s friends sometimes seem to feel that I ought to
neglect her manners and pronunciation, ought to allow her to become
selfish and self-centred, so that she may--” She broke off as if words
failed her. “But I have never heard a grown person suggest that such a
course would be right.”
“Ask your clergyman what is right,” answered Despard. “I am here to
tell you what is healthy; I am here to prescribe. Now, notice, please,
I do not tell you to change. I don’t think you could. The reactions
have taken place too many times. I tell you to go away. We can call it
a rest cure. You shall have beautiful surroundings, comfort, and, above
all that leisure that recent years have failed to give you. In return
I shall ask you to concentrate your mind for a certain number of hours