Ah! There darted through Brompton Road Tom Hornsby with his comic little face cleanshaven. He was one of the few men who had taken at once to the chariot; his supple, nervous frame and perfect equipoise made him master of the art in a few hours. He was a satirist, Tom Hornsby! He had never succeeded in diplomacy, nor in his migration to the City jungle, and unable to control his outbursts of scurrilous wit, he had sharpened his tongue into a steel pen and edited the Weekly Mirror.
There were many more dashing along the Hammersmith Road on that lovely summer morning; some had been trained to soldiery, others to Parliamentarism, but the majority were inadequately provided with the suitable faculties with which to play the game of life. The soldiers were too spiritless, the politicians too bellicose. One little trifle had been omitted in the curriculum of a man’s education, but such a small item that it was hardly worth mentioning—for everyone agreed that to make a gentleman of a man was the great desideratum of college training—well, this little item neglected in all educations was: the training of life. This life-drill, by which all humanity is made akin, had been left out of educational programmes, and the results of such an omission had been painful; for men like Petersham and Watson would walk, dine, drink together, but they no more understood each other than if they had been two different species. Men were surprising and disappointing in this civilisation in which—
“Hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but detest at leisure.”
Men were at intervals Titans or monkeys. Hence the patchiness of life’s texture. Titan greeted monkey, the latter jeered while the former roared; and that was called Society.
The first fashionable hostess who followed Lionel’s hint to Society was the Ambassadress of Tartary. One morning she sat wearily in front of her Venetian mirror, resting her pensive head on her right hand. What endless hours had she spent before this same mirror formerly, combining artistic shades, using ingenious cosmetics to hide the damages done by time! Now, all these were of no earthly use; nature had stepped in and strongly advised women to have silent tête-à-tête with their inner souls. She then and there made up her mind that the lines round her eyes, and the discoloration of the flesh of her neck and arms should never more be the object of rude stares on the part of her guests, and she resolved never more to stand at the top of her staircase to greet her visitors. Of all places in the house that spot was the most unbecoming for complexion, owing to the light being badly distributed. The Marquise de Veralba represented one of the great nations of Europe, at the Court of St. James, and she felt that to her had been given the mission of teaching a lesson to Englishwomen. Orders were promptly given and speedily executed; carpenters and floral decorators were summoned to the marble couch of the Marquise, and after a few days the house was ready for the projected reception, which she intended to be a new move in social gatherings.
As Lionel and Dick walked up the staircase decorated with garlands of exotic flowers, they found, instead of their hostess, her social guide waiting to escort them through the vast rooms of the Embassy to an improvised bower of plants, rose trees and azaleas. There, on a floral lounge, reclined the Marquise. At first the visitors stood amazed before the scene mysteriously lighted by electric bulbs ensconced in the petals of flowers. Gradually they became conscious of her presence, and their attention was riveted by the beauty of her dark eyes; whilst her voice, subdued by restful and homogeneous surroundings, took her friends by surprise, as formerly they had been provoked at the shrillness of her tone, and the flurry with which she was wont to greet them at the top of the staircase, unceasingly fanning herself, whether it was summer or winter. Well, the fan had gone, like so many more useless things!
It was an interesting evening that one at Madame la Marquise’s. In the first place it revealed to an ignorant Society that a new beauty could be given to evanescent youth and departed charms. Then they realised that they had not made great progress in the art of observation and still had need of their guides; and having consciously, during the last weeks, lost a good deal of the old false pride, they talked indiscriminately to those standing or sitting near them, although they ignored the name, social standing, or banking account of the person they were addressing. Was not courtesy after all the best policy in an emergency? Thus acted Society—prompted by personal interest, it is true—but we are not to look too closely at the strings that move the limbs of human marionettes.
“That is all very well, Dick,” said Lionel, “but how will you hint to a waning beauty that a shady bower is the best place for her to ponder the vanities of this world and the greater glory of the next? You see, the Marquise has a long lineage of witty women behind her, and in this emergency her wit and taste have no more failed her than they deserted the brilliant women of the Renaissance who united the wisdom of life with intellectual supremacy.”