“There are a thousand illustrations on my tongue. But of what use is resistance? The new ideas—and cigarettes are an appropriate symbol of many of them—are too strong at present in their initial force to succumb to opposition. But I have never lost faith in the power of reaction. We have gone ahead too fast. There must be a return to the old ways soon.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett turned restlessly to the piano, and struck a few defiant chords on the instrument. She had expressed a doubt as to her status as a rebel. Her husband had appeared at the right moment to fling those doubts to the wind.
As Richard arose to take his departure, Percy-Bartlett said to him, with more cordiality than the young man inwardly felt that he deserved from such a source,—
“Don’t let the atmosphere in which you are thrown, Stoughton, cause you to cast away your birthright. It is on men of birth and education that the safety of this country ultimately depends. You should be—and I hope you are—a conservative of the conservative. I want to get you into the Sons of the Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars. I am an enthusiast on these things, Stoughton,—a man must have a fad, you know,—and you’re the kind of material that we can’t afford to give to the enemy. Good-night! Drop into my office some morning soon, and we’ll talk these matters over.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett gave her cold hand to Richard and said, with a conventional intonation that chilled him, in spite of the soft expression in her eyes,—
“And we will see you soon again, Mr. Stoughton?”
“Thanks,” he said, “and good-night.”
Percy-Bartlett had reseated himself, and was taking the final puffs from his cigar, as his wife returned and began to rearrange the sheets of music on the piano.
“Stoughton is a boy I think I might like,” remarked Percy-Bartlett, gazing at his wife steadily. “But he looks worn-out. I fear he is overdoing things.”
“Perhaps,” she answered with studied indifference. “I suppose his work is very wearing.”