The Far Horizon | Page 8

finger and wagged it, with a heavy attempt at bonhomie. "You have no family to provide for?"
"No," said Mr. Iglesias.
"You are, in short, not married?"
"No, Sir Abel," he said again.
"Well, then, no obstacle presents itself. But let us pause a moment, for I must guard myself against misconception. In the interests of both public and private morality I am a staunch advocate of marriage." Again he cleared his throat. The platform was conspicuous by its presence--in idea. "I hold matrimony to be among the primary duties, nay, to be the primary duty of the Christian and the citizen. We owe it to the race, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the opposite sex. Let us be quite clear on this point. Yet, since I deprecate all bigotry, I admit that there may be exceptional cases in which absence of the marital relation, though arguing some emotional callousness, may prove advantageous to the individual."
A queer light had come into Dominic Iglesias' eyes. The corners of his mouth worked a little. He stood quite still and rather noticeably erect.
"I do not deny this," Sir Abel continued. "I repeat, I do not deny it. And yours, my good friend, may be, I am prepared to acknowledge, a case in point. I take for granted, by the way, that you have saved, since your salary has been a liberal one?"
Iglesias inclined his head.
"Clearly we need discuss this matter no further then." The speaker became impressive, admonitory. "Indeed, it appears to me that your lot is a most favoured one. You are free of all encumbrances. You can retire in comfort--retire, moreover, with the assurance that your departure will cause no inconvenience to myself and my colleagues, since you make room for men younger and more in touch with modern methods than yourself."
Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile.
"Ah, yes!" he said. "Possibly I had not taken that fact sufficiently into account."
"Yet, clearly, it should augment your satisfaction," Sir Abel Barking observed, with a touch of severity. "And, by the by, you can draw your pension. You were entitled, strictly speaking, to do so some years ago-- four, I believe, to be accurate. This was pointed out to you at the time by my nephew Reginald. He was not at all unwilling that you should retire then; but you preferred to remain. I had some conversation, at the time, with my nephew on the subject. I insisted upon the fact that your service had been exemplary. I finally succeeded in overruling his objection to your retaining your post."
"I am evidently under a heavy obligation to you, Sir Abel," said Iglesias.
"Don't mention it--don't mention it," the great man answered nobly. "Those in power should try to exercise it to the benefit of their subordinates. It has always been my effort not only to be just, but to be considerate of the interests and feelings of persons in my employment."
And with that he again fixed his eyes upon the ironical portrait adorning the opposite wall, wholly blind to the fact that it at once revealed his weaknesses and mocked at them, conscious only of an agreeable conviction that he had treated his head clerk with generosity and spoken to him with the utmost good-feeling and tact.
With the proud it is ever a question whether to spoil the Egyptians, or to fling back even the best-earned wages, payable by Egyptians, full in the said Egyptians' face. For the firm of Barking Brothers & Barking, in the abstract, Iglesias had the loyalty of long-established habit. It had been as the rising tide, setting the ship of his fate and fortune honourably afloat in the dismal days of that early stranding. Its service had eaten up the best years of his life, it is true. But, even in so doing, by mere force of constant association, the interests of the great banking house had come to be his own, its schemes and secrets his excitement, its successes his satisfaction. Fortunately the human mind is so constituted that it is possible to have an esteem, amounting to enthusiasm, for a body corporate, while entertaining but scanty admiration for the individuals of whom that body is composed--fortunately indeed, since otherwise what government, secular or sacred, would long continue to subsist? Hence, to Iglesias, this matter of the pension was decidedly difficult. Pride said, "This man, Abel Barking has been offensive; both he and his nephew have been ungrateful; reject it with contempt." Justice said, "You have no quarrel with the firm as a whole; accept it." Common sense, pricked up by anger, said, "Claim your own, take every brass farthing of it." While personal dignity, winding up the case, admonished, "By no means give yourself away. Make no impetuous demonstration. Go home and think it quietly over." And with the