From Sleeping Fires, by George Gissing
In this passage, middle-aged Langley seeks permission from eighteen-year-old Louis’s guardian, Lady Revill, to take the boy under his wing and help guide him through the shoals of youthful adventuring. Lady Revill is a former lover of Langley with whom he has only recently reconnected, after a twenty-year separation. She knows of Langley’s true relationship with young Louis, that Langley is his father – a fact of which Langley has not yet been apprised. Here’s the dialogue:
“What were you about to suggest, Mr. Langley?”
“Nothing very definite. But I think I can enter into Louis’s feelings, and I seemed to attract his confidence, and this suggested to me that I might be of some service if other influences failed. I know that I am inviting a rebuke for officiousness. A word, and I efface myself again. But if you permit me to serve you, I would gladly do all I can.”
“The difficulty is very great,” said Lady Revill, “and I feel it as a kindness that you should wish to help me. But how? I am slow to catch your meaning.”
“All I should ask of you would be a permission to continue, with your good will, the relations with Louis which began at Athens. I am an idle man, without engagements, without responsibilities. When Louis comes home, would you consent to my taking up, informally, the position Mr. Worboys will relinquish? It would be for me a purpose in life and it might, I think, afford you some relief from anxiety.”
Lady Revill sat with eyes cast down; she kept so long a silence that Langley allowed himself to utter his impatient thought.
“You don’t like to say that you think me unfit for such a charge?”
“I had nothing of that sort in mind, Mr. Langley,” she answered, in a lowered and softened tone.
“You shrink from restoring me, thus far, to your friendly confidence.”
“That is not the cause of my hesitation.”
Langley winced at this reply, which was spoken with a return to the more distant manner.
“In brief, then,” he said quietly, “my offer is unwelcome, and I must ask your pardon for venturing it.”
“You misunderstood me. I am very willing that you should act as you propose.”
It seemed to him, now, that Lady Revill assumed the tone of granting a suit for favor. Moment by moment her proximity, her voice, regained the old power over him, and with the revival of tender emotion he grew more sensitive to the meanings of her reserve.
“But,” he remarked, “you foresee a number of practical difficulties?”
Very strangely, she again kept a long silence. Her visitor rose.
“I ought not to ask you to decide this matter at once, Lady Revill. Enough if you will give it your consideration.”
“It is decided,” she made answer, rising also, but with a hesitation, all but a timidity, which did not escape Langley’s eye. She seemed of a sudden anxious to atone for cold formalities. Her face, he thought, had a somewhat brighter colour, and the touch of diffidence in her bearing was more perceptible.
“If you knew how glad I am to speak with you once more.”
Suppressed emotion at length betrayed itself in his voice and he stopped.
“I will let you hear very soon,” said Lady Revill.