Lena in London! This was quite decisive.
“Excuse me, Burnett,” I said, turning to my neglected friend; “but this letter is most important. A nice business pickle I am in, I can tell you.”
“What nicely-scented note-paper your business correspondents use. You have my deep sympathies. Well, farewell for the present.”
“Don’t be in a hurry,” I said; “I am afraid I must postpone this Continental trip after all. Business is business, whoever one’s informant may be. No, I must really knock a few days off my rest.”
Burnett stared, and concluded that something really serious was on hand.
“So you will be available for two or three days longer. That being so, I shall expect to see you at the old place about eight o’clock to-morrow evening. Be sure and come, for I have a guest with me of peculiar interest to both of us. His name? Oh! don’t be impatient. It is a fixture, then? All right. No, I can’t stay. Good-night.”
I laughed heartily after I had seen him out. What a chequered life, what curious connections were mine—now a jostle with fashion, now with fanatics of anarchy like Burnett. Travelling, it is said, planes away social prejudices, and certainly in combination with Karl Marx it had done so in my case. Many friends used to rally me about my liking for the haunts of luxury, and some even went so far as to say it was of a piece with my other “lukewarm” doctrines. The answer, however, was ready. I hated revolution, and I equally hated the pettiness of a sordid socialism. We must not, I contended, see the graces of high life, art and culture, fouled by the mob, but the mob elevated into a possession and appreciation of the graces. It was just because I believed some approach to this ideal to be possible that I fought under the banners of my party, and forewent travel and independence in the interests of the wage-slave. That I was no Orator Puff I yearned for some opportunity to show. Cavillers would have then found that my money, my repute, and, if needful, my life, were all alike subservient to the cause I had at heart.
That night, however, lighter visions were to beguile my thoughts. When I dwelt upon once more meeting Miss Northerton, even Burnett’s sombre hints lost their power to interest me. And when later on I did find time to sift them, they received short shrift at my hands. Bluster in large part, no doubt, was my verdict as I turned into bed that night. However, to-morrow I should be in a better position to judge. The interview would, at any rate, prove interesting, for Burnett’s anarchist friends, however desperate, would furnish material in plenty for a study of human nature.
CHAPTER II.
THE ‘SHADOW’ OF HARTMANN.
It was with a light heart that I made my way to the Northertons’ the following afternoon. The prospect of a chat with the smart old gentleman and his ladies was delightful, and my only apprehensions concerned the assemblage I possibly might find there. As a rule receptions of this sort are tedious; prolific only of dyspepsia and boring conversations. Upper middle-class mediocrity swarms round Mammon, and Mammon, the cult of the senses apart, is uninteresting. With Mill I was always of opinion that the thinker is corrupted by the pettinesses of ordinary “social” intercourse. True, one occasionally meets a celebrity, but celebrities who are not professional talkers are best left unseen—their repute usually so outshines their deportment and conversation. Still, the celebrity is tolerable provided that not too much incense is required. The same thing cannot be said of the camp-following of mediocrities: of contact with this the effects may be as serious as they will certainly prove painful to a well-wisher of the human species. Happily, I rarely suffered at the Northertons’. Ever and anon lions stalked through their premises, and the legions of well-to-do imbeciles thronged them. But there was generally the host or hostess to fall back upon, to say nothing of the companionship of Lena, to whom, if the secret must be revealed, I had for some time been engaged. The understanding was for the present to be privy to ourselves, but I had no reason to suppose that her worthy parents would have cause to object to the match. My politics, which might have scared most people of their standing, merely interested the ex-commissioner and were wholly indifferent to his wife. But still it was satisfactory to think that Lena would shortly come of age, and that our joint means would be sufficient to enable us to ignore any probable obstacles. Old Mr. Matthews’s legacy had removed the last formidable barrier.