Page:The Aspern Papers.djvu/274

 'Well, it will be rather disagreeable for you,' he said, in answer to her question. 'Unless indeed you don't care what he says.'

'But I do care. The book will be sure to be very able. Do you mean if it should be severe—that would be disagreeable for me? Very certainly it would; it would put me in a false, in a ridiculous position, and I don't see how I should bear it,' Lady Chasemore went on, feeling that her candour was generous and wishing it to be. 'But I shan't allow it to be severe. To prevent that, if it's necessary, I will write every word of it myself.'

She laughed as she took this vow, but there was nothing in Macarthy's face to show that he could lend himself to a mirthful treatment of the question. 'I think an Englishman had better look at home,' he said, 'and if he does so I don't easily see how the occupation should leave him any leisure or any assurance for reading lectures to other nations. The self-complacency of your husband's countrymen is colossal, imperturbable. Therefore, with the tight place they find themselves in to-day and with the judgment of the rest of the world upon them being what it is, it's grotesque to see them still sitting in their old judgment-seat and pronouncing upon the shortcomings of people who are full of the life that has so long since left them.' Macarthy Grice spoke slowly, mildly, with a certain dryness, as if he were delivering himself once for all and would not return to the subject. The quietness of his manner made the words solemn for his sister, and she stared at him a moment, wondering, as if they pointed to strange things which she had hitherto but imperfectly apprehended.