June remembered the phantoms of Paradise Court, and, in a different manner from the Pharaoh whom Moses chided, hardened her heart. Oberon, or no Oberon, the fairies should come back to London town! For the sake of the so-called rich, as well as for the sake of the very poor, they must re-create Elfdom within the seven square miles, and carry their blessed influence through Suburbia. If this could not be before she must yield up the crown, then it must be after. In any case, it must be. That was certain, flat, absolute. London should be reclaimed.
The Archdeacon's table-partner was Mrs. Billie Thyme, a small pink, flaxen lady, whose over-rich elderly husband financed her fads, and in consequence gave her ample opportunity to shine in the personal paragraphs of evening newspapers. Mrs. Billie was not the least bit blasée, although even she was sighing for new excitements to conquer.
She was always in an infinite vein of flutter and chatter. Most exalted personages were glad to talk nonsense with her; at bazaars and garden-parties her skirt-dancing drew the crowd. She was a prime favourite of the Duchess, and kept the dinner-circle well entertained with tinkling talk.
It was she who began on the fairies. They were seldom left out of the conversation of these times. June was still dreamily inert, throned on a large silver salt-cellar, watching and indifferently wondering, not yet vividly interested enough to use these puppets for the march-forward of her ideas.
"And what are we to think of this fairy craze?" Mrs. Thyme asked of the company generally.
There was no immediate response. The Archdeacon left the question for someone else to answer. In Society he tried habitually to sit on the fence.
"A nine-day' wonder!" said Lord Geoffrey. "Mere nonsense, as ping-pong and diabolo were."
"A folly to-day; forgotten to-morrow; and afterwards a sad reflection"--this from a novelist of the moment--"democracy is a baby which quickly breaks its toys."
"It has already lasted nearby nine weeks," answered the Duke quietly. "It is strange; I don't understand it. That Mansion-House fellow, the Lord Mayor, began it. The movement seems spreading. Most movements do spread nowadays. We didn't do that sort of thing in the seventies."
"Indeed, no," agreed the Duchess, in her best commanding-officer voice. "When I was a 'gairl,' belief in the fairies lingered amongst the Irish and nowhere else. Those Board Schools and Trade Unions have caused this nonsense, I'm sure."