“Well,” said Jack, driving his hands into his pockets and frowning fiercely, “I don’t think it’s right to let such things pass without a protest. Something will happen that cannot be undone. I don’t approve of systems by which people’s welfare is thrown into the hands of a few; but if they are—if you are those few, it’s—it’s more criminal than many things of which the law takes cognisance, to neglect their interest. It’s destroying the last relics of reality, and bringing the whole social edifice to destruction.”
“What I think,” said Bob, “is that if a man’s a gentleman, and has been accustomed to see things in a proper point of view, he acts accordingly.”
“A gentleman! A man’s only claim to be a gentleman is that he recognises the whole brotherhood of humanity and his duties as a human being.”
“Come, I don’t know,” said Bob, not quite sure where these expressions were leading him.
“His duty to his neighbour,” said Cheriton.
“You worry yourself fifty times too much about it all,” said Jack, with vehement inconsistency.
“Well, perhaps I do,” said Cheriton, glad to turn the conversation. “Come, tell me how you got on in Wales, I have never heard a word of it.”
Jack looked at him for a moment, and with something of an effort began to talk about his reading party; but presently he warmed with the topic, and Cherry brightened into animation at the sound of familiar names and former interests; they began to laugh over old jokes, and quarrel over old subjects of disputation; and they were talking fast and eagerly against each other, with a sort of chorus from Bob, when, looking up, Cherry suddenly saw Alvar standing before them with a letter in his hand.
He was extremely pale, but his eyes blazed with such intensity of wrath, he came up to them with a gesture expressive of such passion, that they all started up; while he burst out,—
“I have to tell you that I am scorned, injured, insulted. My grandfather has died—”