“Are you sure they will be unclean? And if by mendicants you mean those having no clothes nor any money, they will be no worse than we are; for we have no cheque-book, nor any pockets to put our money in,” softly whispered Eva, whose heart was beating violently at the reproof of the man she loved but whom she pitied for his sad limitations.
“My dear man,” joined in Lionel, “this idea of the dining-halls is but the preface to a greater reform! It will for the moment meet the need of all the working classes whom the storm has put on the streets; but in the near future it will be our new mode of partaking of our meals in public.” Lionel smiled as he noticed the effect his strange words had on Murray and Sinclair.
“Will you allow a few of your privileged friends to have their meals privately in their own homes?” slowly uttered Sinclair, who looked as if the greatest danger was at hand.
“By all means, my dear fellow. We force no one; coercion is not the password of our future Society, but personal initiative; and after a little time has gone by, you will be the first to join these Symposia. It will only be another form of club life without which you could not have imagined your London; with this difference that your field of sympathy will be enlarged in our new form of assemblies, and instead of meeting daily a limited number of members, about whom you knew all that was to be known, you will join a body of men and women about whom you have hitherto known nothing. I grant you that many of them would not have been admitted in the bosom of your literary and artistic clubs, nor would they have been allowed to associate with the members of smart clubs; but now it will not much avail any man that he was a member of the Vagabond, or of Boodles!”
“Anyhow, I think we prefer meeting no one to associating with a mass of illiterate and ill-bred folks,” said Murray.
“You will not always say so, George,” replied Lionel. “The disappearance of cheque-books and of pockets has done more towards the fusion of classes than you believe; and it is mere common-sense that is prompting Society to take a rational view of the whole thing. Parliament is dissolved since yesterday, as you know; there was nothing else to be done, I suppose. The hour of self-government has struck when we least expected it, and it must find us mature for the work to be done.” Then turning to Gwen, “Do you think that your girl friends will help in this new scheme of dining-halls? I feared they would toss their dainty heads and pout their rosy lips at the suggestion.”
“My dear Lionel, what they objected to was not so much the hunger that wasted away half the world, for they could not see its ravages and had not any personal experience to bear on the subject; but they were shocked at the grimy shabbiness of the destitutes, for that they could notice, and their individual knowledge of luxury intensified their hatred of poverty.”
“You are a true observer, Miss Towerbridge, and a humourist which spoils nothing,” remarked Danford. Gwen blushed vividly at the little man’s praise; she was proud at having won the appreciation of such a master in psychology.
“I shall expect you all to turn away in disgust from your uncouth companions,” and Sinclair rose. “I am going to join Vane; for the present his views suit my state of mind, and we shall see who will win in the long run—you, with your rude Dame Nature; or we, with our discriminating power of æsthetics. Good-bye, poor Miss Carey”—and he bent towards her—“you are not cut out for a distributing kitchen employer; and nature is a hideous transgressor whom you ought to kick out of your doors. What will Lady Carey say to all this?” and the fastidious critic was off, followed by Murray.
The group broke up; Lionel putting his hand on Danford’s shoulder walked out of the Rotunda, leaving Gwen and Eva conversing in one part of the cool hall, while Lelia Dale and Nettie reclined in another part. Lelia Dale leaned her head on her hand. She did not know whom to serve. She had always been partial to Sinclair, whose criticisms on her talent were most flattering, and the eclecticism of Vane was an element which she appreciated highly; but, on the other hand, nature had its attractions, also Lord Somerville was a great power in the social organism, and the love of notoriety was so ingrafted in her professional soul that she was unwilling to see the rising of a Society of new stagers out of which she would be excluded. She meditated whether it would not be wise to put on one side her pride, and to beg humbly of Eleanora Duse to initiate her in the secrets of physiognomy; for, upon the whole, Lelia was artistic enough to know in her inner heart that she was deficient in facial expression, and totally ignorant of the laws of motion.