"Never again!" was his resolution. "Never, never again!"
At that moment the prig in him finally went. He was humble now and burningly sincere.
He realized his personal responsibility. In the future it must be his duty, in and out of Parliament, to modify the hideous inequality that had been exemplified that night. To have this waste, idleness, and vulgarity--this undisturbed triumph of Moloch and Mammon--by the side of extreme want and its manifold iniquities, was preposterous, humiliating, intolerable. The matter must be mended, if that could be. He would devote his years to the business.
But how to touch those extravagant idlers, the mischievous human butterflies, the Smart Set? Ah, how?
Dawn had succeeded night. Its greyness was shrinking under the promise of the sun. The Park gates were being opened as he came to them. He passed in to walk over the grass, preferring to return that way to Armingham House while his brain strove and wrestled with teeming problems.
Sudden inexplicable happiness seized him. He felt momentary lightness of heart. His mood of depression went. He felt surprisingly hopeful. There must be a fine ending to all these quandaries. But why was he so hopeful? He could not tell.
The reason was sufficiently simple. June, in her hour of deepest gloom, was encouraged by the sight of the fairies; and her joy at seeing them there had permeated--had glorified--him.
CHAPTER XVI
PROGRESS
Fairyland had begun to return to London.