"By no means! but you must pardon an Englishman his pride in the old stock."
"I should quite imagine," remarked Mr. Pomeroy, "that in such an old country as England, so conservative in all social matters, and so tenacious of vested rights, such a plan of coöperation would answer very well. But it would be quite a different thing, in a more democratic community, to let workmen get in any degree a hand on the reins. Business is too complex here—financiering too delicate. It would be like letting a bull into a china shop."
A lady has one great advantage in an argument, that she cannot be abruptly choked off, especially by her host, no matter how distasteful her arguments may be. Perhaps Miss Harley was conscious of this advantage, for she forthwith proceeded to describe, at some length, a most successful profit-sharing enterprise which her father had taken her to see, at Guise, in French Flanders; a great foundry which owed its prosperity, mainly, to the zeal, and enterprise of Monsieur Godin, a disciple of Fourrier's, who had consecrated his life to elevate the condition of workingmen. The capital, she said, was gradually being transferred to the workmen, who already owned more than half a million dollars worth of stock; and the success, so far, was most encouraging. She then described enthusiastically the great Familistère, or residence establishment, begun by Godin about 1859—the large quadrangular buildings with courts covered in with glass, the coöperative shops and schools, the arrangements even for coöperative char-women, till it seemed as if she were quoting from some dreamer's Utopian fable. Mr. Archer took a mischievous delight in drawing her out on the subject, as Mr. Pomeroy subsided into silent endurance till, at length, to the host's evident relief, the ladies rose to leave the table, when he quickly switched the conversation off on a political track.
CHAPTER XIII.
PIPPA PASSES.
When the ladies adjourned to the drawing-room, which was so littered with costly knick-knacks that, as Nora afterwards averred, "it looked like a bazaar," that young lady gravitated by a natural attraction to Miss Harley's side, eager to ask her more questions about matters which had begun to interest her deeply. From Flanders, their talk soon drifted onwards to Germany and Italy. Nora, strange to say, had never yet been abroad, and cherished a most fresh and unsophisticated interest about those far countries which she had as yet seen only in books, pictures and dreams. Then they went on to talk of art; and, as a book of illustrations of Italian art lay conveniently at hand, they looked over a number of the engravings of old pictures together. They were lingering over the tragic face of Beatrice Cenci, with the mystic sorrow-laden eyes, which so attract and haunt the beholder; and Miss Harley was giving Nora an outline of her story, as you hear it in Rome, when the door opened, and Mr. Chillingworth entered, speedily finding his way to Miss Blanchard's side.
"I got tired of the politics in there," he said, smiling slightly, "so I thought I would set a good example. Ah! you're looking at the Cenci. What a tragedy lies sealed up in those dark eyes! What a type of the thousand tragedies that lie sealed up in many a ruin of those terrible old days!"
"And do you think we have no tragedies about us now?" asked Miss Harley, looking up at the tall figure above her.
"Oh yes, undoubtedly! But not so many, or so grim, I hope! And then, you know, we don't see present things quite so effectively, or in such good perspective as we do the past! We need a little distance, you see, in order to take things in as a whole."