“Wasn’t it Bossuet,” asked Irene timidly, but with determination, for she felt that she owed it to Aunt Lilian to intervene; and besides, Aunt Lilian liked her to take part in the conversation, “wasn’t it Bossuet who said that there was something of the Infinite in passion?”
“Splendid, Irene,” Mr. Cardan cried encouragingly.
Irene blushed in the concealing darkness. “But I think Bossuet’s quite right,” she declared. She could become a lioness, in spite of her blushes, when it was a question of supporting Aunt Lilian. “I think he’s absolutely right,” she confirmed, after a moment of recollection, out of her own experience. She herself had felt most infinitely, more than once—for Irene had run through a surprising number of passions in her time. “I can’t think,” her Aunt Lilian used to say to her, when Irene came in evenings to brush her hair before she went to bed, “I can’t think how it is that you’re not wildly in love with Peter—or Jacques—or Mario.” (The name might change as Mrs. Aldwinkle and her niece moved in their seasonal wanderings, backwards and forwards across the map of Europe; but, after all, what’s in a name?) “If I were your age I should be quite bowled over by him.” And thinking more seriously now of Peter, or Jacques, or Mario, Irene would discover that Aunt Lilian was quite right; the young man was indeed a very remarkable young man. And for the remainder of their stay at the Continental, the Bristol, the Savoia, she would be in love—passionately. What she had felt on these occasions was decidedly infinite. Bossuet, there was no doubt of it, knew what he was talking about.
“Well, if you think he’s right, Irene,” said Mr. Cardan, “why then, there’s nothing for me to do but retire from the argument. I bow before superior authority.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and bowed.
Irene felt herself blushing once more. “Now you’re making fun of me,” she said.
Mrs. Aldwinkle put her arm protectively round the young girl’s shoulders. “I won’t let you tease her, Cardan,” she said. “She’s the only one of you all who has a real feeling for what is noble and fine and grand.” She drew Irene closer to her, pressed her in a sidelong and peripatetic embrace. Happily, devotedly, Irene abandoned herself. Aunt Lilian was wonderful!
“Oh, I know,” said Mr. Cardan apologetically, “that I’m nothing but an old capripede.”
Meanwhile Lord Hovenden, humming loudly and walking a little apart from the rest of the company, was making it clear, he hoped, to every one that he was occupied with his own thoughts and had not heard anything that had been said for the last five minutes. What had been said disturbed him none the less. How did Irene know so much about passion, he wondered? Had there been, could there still be … other people? Painfully and persistently the question asked itself. With the idea of dissociating himself still more completely from all that had been said, he addressed himself to Mr. Falx.
“Tell me, Mr. Falx,” he said in a pensive voice, as though he had been thinking about the subject for some time before he spoke, “what do you think of the Fascist Trades Unions?”
Mr. Falx told him.