The prompt stern Goddess
Shakes her head, frowning;
Time gives his hour-glass
Its due reversal;
Their hour is gone.
Matthew Arnold.
I stayed to dinner at the flat in South Kensington, and after dinner, when I spoke of leaving, Constance Grey asked if I would care to accompany her into Blackfriars. She wanted to call at Printing House Square, and ascertain what further news had arrived. The implied intimacy and friendliness of the suggestion gave me a pleasurable thrill; it came as something of a reinstatement for me, and compensated for much. Constance Grey's views of me had in some way become more important to me than anything else. I was even now more concerned about that than about the news.
We made the journey by omnibus. I suggested a cab, as in duty bound, but, doubtless with a thought of my finances, my companion insisted upon the cheaper way. We had some trouble to get seats, but found them at last on a motor omnibus bound for Whitechapel. The streets were densely crowded, and the Bank Holiday spirit which I had remarked before was now general, and much more marked.
"It reminds me exactly of 'Mafeking Night,'" I said, referring to that evening of the South African war during which London waxed drunk upon the news of the relief of Mafeking.
"Was it as bad even then?" said my companion. And her question showed me, what I might otherwise have overlooked, that a good deal of water had passed under the bridges since South African war days. We had been a little ashamed of our innocent rowdiness over the Mafeking relief. We had become vastly more inconsistent and less sober since then. I think the "Middle Class Music Halls" had taken their share in the progress, by breaking down much of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the respectable middle class. But, of course, one sees now that the rapid growth among us of selfish irresponsibility and repudiation of national obligations was the root cause of that change in public behaviour which I saw clearly enough, once it had been suggested to me by Constance Grey's question.
I saw that, among the tens of thousands of noisy promenaders of both sexes who filled the streets, and impeded traffic at all crossings, the class which had always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, and that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in strength, by recruits from a class which, a few years before, had been proverbially noted for its decorous and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I learned afterwards that the clergy had preached to practically empty churches. A man we met in The Times office told us of this, and my companion's comment was:
"Yes, even their religion has less meaning for them than their pleasure; and, with religion a dead letter, the spirit that won Trafalgar and armed the Thames against Napoleon, must be dead and buried."
The news we received at The Times office was extraordinary. It seemed there was no longer room for the smallest doubt that a large portion of East Anglia was actually occupied by a German army. Positive details of information could not be obtained.
"The way the coastal districts have been hermetically sealed against communication, and the speed and thoroughness with which the occupation has been accomplished, will remain, I believe, the most amazing episode in the history of warfare," said the solemn graybeard, to whom I had been presented by Constance Grey. (If he had known that I was the assistant editor of The Mass, I doubt if this Mr. Poole-Smith would have consented to open his mouth in my presence. But my obscurity and his importance combined to shelter me, and I was treated with confidence as the friend of a respected contributor.)