There had been a long pause in these reflections, as she herself began to be less subject to the delight of making a noise, and even Rodie expended his high spirits out of doors, and learned to respect the decorums of home. But as thought grew in Elsie’s mind, a comprehension of the meaning of life grew with it, a comprehension, much aided by the philosophical remarks of Marion, and by those general views which Mrs. Buchanan was not aware were philosophy, the woman’s philosophy which recognises many mysteries, and accepts many necessities in a manner quite different from the man’s. The subject of her father was one of those upon which she had received much enlightenment. She had learned that the highest regard and the deepest love were quite consistent with a consciousness of certain incurable weaknesses, and a toleration that in other circumstances would have been something like contempt. Probably nobody but a woman can ever understand this extraordinary mingling of sentiment. A man is naturally indignant and angry to think that his sublime self should ever be the object of this unimpassioned consciousness of defect, though no doubt his sentiment towards his womankind is of the same mingled character: but in the woman’s mind it takes away nothing from the attraction, and little from the respect with which she regards her man. Perhaps it even adds to his attraction, as making the intercourse more interesting, and bringing all the varieties of her being into play.
This gave to Elsie an almost tragic sense of the necessity of preserving her father’s peace of mind at all hazards. When she came to think the whole matter over, and to realise what Rodie’s view of the subject was, her mind took a new opening. She took up the Bible which was on her table, and read over the parable of the unjust steward, with this new light upon it. She had not, by some chance, heard her father’s sermon on the subject, and she was not very clear as to how it was that the man was commended for his falsehood, nor did she enter upon that view of the question. Was there something good in it, as Rodie seemed to think, diminishing the burdens of the poor, trying to save those who were struggling, and could not answer for themselves? Elsie, in the silence, shook her young head with its curls over that idea. She had no pretension of knowing better than her teachers and elders. She did not think, because she did not understand, that therefore the Lord who commended the unjust steward must be wrong. She took the matter plainly, without penetrating its other meaning. Was it good, or right, or excusable, a sin that one could forgive to one’s father that he should do this? Rodie seemed to think so. He said he would rather his father had done a wrong thing like that than many right things. Elsie began to cry, dropping hot tears on her Bible, all alone, not understanding, in the midst of the silence and the night. No, no, not that. It would not be so bad, perhaps, as if he had done it for himself. To save the Horsburghs and the Aitkens from ruin, even at the expense of a lie, of teaching them to lie---- Oh no, no, Elsie cried, the tears pouring over her Bible. It might not be so bad in one way, but it was worse in another. It was dictating a lie to others as well as uttering it himself. Was papa guilty of that? Was that what it meant, that struggle long ago, the questioning and the self-conflict? Oh no, no, she cried to herself, oh no, no! Neither for himself, neither for others could he have done that. And yet what did it mean?