IN SOCIETY
As the Archdeacon's carriage rolled westward, June watched the people in the crowded streets, and made some estimate of the task in front of her.
Already she and her squire had done much. They had speeded the efforts of the good folk always at work. They had guided the benevolent and beneficent along the wise ways. They had done much--very much, but it was as nothing in comparison with the need. North, south, east and west, she had flown in her peregrinations, only to find much the same problems, similar squalor, selfishness, ugliness and want--unhappy legacies of past carelessness and misdoings--prevalent in all parts. Slums and indifference abounded wherever she flew. It was the indifference which particularly troubled her. She rested her head on the Archdeacon's watch-pocket and wept.
The prospect before herself and Bim seemed appalling. Only the gnome and she--two, when what really was wanted was an organized army from Elfland of gentle spirits with magic besoms and enchanted swords.
But it was no use sighing for the unavailable. She must go on as well as she could, making the most of her own powers, intentions and Bim.
Armingham House stands in a dull respectable square. Two stone armorial beasts keep guard of its ugly gateway. They are legendary monsters, not wyverns, or griffins, or unicorns, or mock-turtle, but something of a combination of all of these. On the arch of the gate is a broken motto, which means something heroic in very bad French. It originated from a martial medieval incident; nobody remembers what. One of the advantages of long descent is a convenient haziness as to certain events and beginnings.
The Duke of Armingham possessed every one of the characteristics of extreme aristocracy. His blue blood, high nose, arched eyebrows and slender hands could only be improved on by an idealistic portrait-painter. They were the sure marks of class and culture. He had the gentle voice, deliberate manner, and a habit of waving his pince-nez when he was speaking, which mark authority. Throughout his life, whenever he had spoken, others had to be silent; it was therefore unnecessary for his voice to be raised, or his tones to become strident.
His fashions were those of the early seventies. Until that period he had out-dandified the dandies and been glorious in the forefront of his time. Then his style stayed still. Any more recent order of dress than that which Louis Napoleon affected was out of date, he declared. He was, in these later days, a dear old thing, kind and as perfectly happy as a duke can be. He bore the disadvantages of his wealth and position with wonderful lightheartedness, and was able by taking thought to avoid being envious of his inferiors. He feared nothing except lightning, mud in Piccadilly, and his Duchess on a Court day.
His wife was even more assuredly an exalted being. Rumour said that in her young days she had been a nursery governess; but those who ought to be authoritative on the subject declared that rumour lied. Anyhow, the gilt and scarlet books which tell the tales of the titled, gave her a colonel for father, so that her blood was likely to be something blue. In her gowns and graces she certainly looked every inch a Duchess, and there were many inches.
Her influence in the world was worthy of her station. She had eyes which commanded, and could make presumption feel like a doormat on a rainy day. She never forgot her coronet and was not genial; indeed, she looked on mankind through diminishing lorgnettes, and saw it small. She was one of the two hundred and twenty-three ladies, all the world over, who know they are Supermen.