“Perhaps America is destined to shape our future civilisation,” said Lady Carey; “I am sure I do not care who is to be our saviour, as long as we are saved from this anarchy.”
“My dear Lady Carey,” replied Lord Somerville, as he walked to the chimney and leaned his elbow on the marble mantelpiece, “we shall have to coin another word for the future Society that is staring us in the face, for the old word civilisation has a nasty flavour about it. At times we have worn war-paint and feathers; at others, charms round our necks, crosses on our hearts, decorations on our breasts; but the cruelty of the savage was no more execrable than the dogmatic ferocity of Torquemada, nor in any way more inhuman than the ruthlessness of George I. Nor was Queen Eleanor’s kerchief more indicative of mediæval depravity than Queen Elizabeth’s frill an emblem of Renaissance levity. Each of these historical eras was but a different stage of barbarism. We had more ornaments than Hottentots, and less principles than monkeys. As long as we have two different creeds, half-a-dozen codes of honour, and hundreds of punctilios, we shall never be civilised. Instead of adding more labels to human beings, we must, first of all, find out what a human being is. We are taught virtue in the nursery, but we are compelled to commit crimes when out of it. The morning prayer says one thing, and life as we make it teaches another. Step by step we are trained to family deceit, political Pharisaism, commercial fraud, diplomatic mendacity, art quackery; and all that in the name of a Redeemer who lashed the vendors out of the temple, and died for the love of truth and peace.”
“Someone said that it needed three generations to make a gentleman,” murmured Vane in his silvery voice.
“No doubt the dogmatist who said that must have thought of Poole and La Ferriere as the modern Debretts; for our present aristocracy is nothing more than a nobility of vestments. Generation after generation has handed down to us the art of carrying the soldier’s sword, the judge’s robes, the Court train, or of bearing a proud head under the Prince of Wales’s nodding plumes. It is the atavism of garment which has made us what we are. But in the race of life; in the fight for the post of honour; in the hour of darkness and sorrow, when failure brings down the curtain on our lives, clothes will be of no help. The noble sweep of a satin train, the long-inherited art of bowing oneself out of a room, will be of little service in the final bowing out into eternity. Your grandmother’s corselet or your great-grandfather’s rapier and jerkin will lie idly on the ground, for we are not allowed any luggage on the other side. The real fact is that the whole social structure was a big farce.”
“A farce more likely to turn into a tragedy,” saucily retorted Vane. “See how matters are going on in South Africa; or at least see what is not going on; for by this time we must be the laughing-stock of a handful of farmers. War is bound to cease, and we shall have to retreat ignominiously, as we cannot send any more men out there, owing to the confusion at the War Office. It appears they cannot distinguish our valiant officers from the men.”
“Ah! This is the first blow struck at the principle of warfare,” replied Lionel. “When you think of it in cold blood, it is quite impossible to admit of war. Try and boycott your neighbour, persuade him into giving up his will to yours; order his meals, eat three parts of them yourself, invade his house, break his furniture; and if he in any way objects, then use the convincing arguments of artillery and bayonets. After that, you will see how it works.”
“Yes, the history of nations is nothing else but a series of thefts, murders and duplicity; and were any of our personal friends to commit a quarter of what sovereigns and governments commit in one day’s work, we should promptly strike their names off our visiting list,” said Gwendolen. Perhaps this remark struck home, for no one replied. Vane got up briskly on to his feet, and bowed daintily over Lady Carey’s hand.
“Ta-ta, Mr Danford,” he nodded to the little mimic, and left the room.
“I shall walk a little way with you, Lionel,” said Sinclair, who had got up to say good-bye to his hostess.
“Come along with us,” replied Lionel. “Good-bye, dear Lady Carey. I am going to ring up old Victor de Laumel by telephone, and ask him what they think of us in ‘la ville lumière.’”