“But there is one thing I must ask you, Lady Ellington,” he said, “though I need not say how charmed I am to be able to show you that, since it interests you; it is that I shall not be made a sort of show. Evelyn Dundas was down here a few days ago, and he told me that all London was going in for the simplification of life. Of course it seems to me that they could not do better, but I really must refuse to pose as a prophet, however minor.”
Lady Ellington gave no direct promise; indeed from the Hermit’s point of view her next speech was far from reassuring.
“It is too wonderful,” she said, “and now I can say that I have seen it myself. But do you think, Mr. Merivale, that you have any right to shut up yourself and your powers like that when there are so many of us anxious to learn? Could you not—ah, well, it is the end of the season now, but perhaps later in the autumn when people come to London again, could you not give us a little class, just once a week, and tell us about the new philosophy? I’m sure I know a dozen people who would love to come. Of course we would come down here”—this was a great concession—“not expect you to come up to London. You would charge, of course; you might make quite a good thing out of it.”
Merivale tried to put in a word, but she swept on.
“Of course that is a minor point,” she said, “but what is, I think, really important, is that one should always try to help others who want to learn. There is quite a movement going on in London; people deep-breathe and don’t touch meat; the Duchess of Essex, for instance—perhaps you know her——”
Here he got a word in.
“I am so sorry,” he said, “but it is absolutely out of the question. To begin with, I have nothing to tell you.”
“Ah, but that thrush now,” said she. “How did you do it? That is all I want to know.”
He laughed.
“But that is exactly what I can’t tell you,” he said, “any more than you can tell me how it is that when you want to speak your tongue frames words. I ask it to come and sit on my finger—hardly even that. I know no more how I get it to come than it knows, the dear, why it comes.”