“My lord, you do not know your own countrymen. It is only when a great reform evokes a trivial image in John Bull’s sleepy mind that an Utopian ideal has any power to move him. You see, John Bull is of a homely disposition, and he is very fond of telling you that the surface of our planet and the relations between nations have greatly altered since a man one day watched a kettle simmering. The Bishop knows his own flock well enough, and he leads them with a gentle hand.”
“Listen, Dan, to his closing words.”
“England has behaved well throughout this crisis, my friends, it has shown self-control and good-humour in making the best of a very uncomfortable position; and I have no hesitation in declaring before you all, that it is owing to our being essentially a moral nation that God chose us to evangelise other races less felicitous. Let us never forget that we are a practical nation, incapable of being led away from the path of wisdom by moonstruck Utopians; and let us always bear in mind that the Anglo-Saxon is always ready to take his share in a case of rescue, when the means of effecting it lie in conforming to the country’s code of honour.”
“There he is again at his old game of British pride,” and Lionel shrugged his shoulders as he tightened his horse’s reins and moved on.
“Ah! my lord, be more lenient with him; the man means well, and that is all we want for the present. Naturally he sticks to a few obsolete prejudices, but never mind that, for he has risen to the greatest heights in being for once sincere.”
“Well, Mr Vane?” inquired Mrs Archibald, as she turned her face towards the dismayed countenance of the dilettante, “what do you think of the Bishop’s address?”
“Our ranks are thinning, dear Mrs Archibald; the more reason for us to draw close to one another and to struggle against the rising waves of vulgarity.” The little fetish of Society put his hand to his eyes—what was it? A pang at his heart or a sudden faintness? No one knew, for he soon recovered his self-control and was as flippant as ever.
CHAPTER XVIII
“How isolated we are in this wide, wide world,” said Mrs Archibald to Lord Mowbray, a few days after the meeting in St Paul’s. They had rambled beyond Putney Bridge on a warm afternoon, and having reached Barnes Commons had seated themselves upon the soft grass. These two recalcitrants mourned pitifully over their present state and uncongenial surroundings, and, as they sat, related to each other in short, spasmodic sentences their grievous historiette of woe. Anecdote after anecdote escaped their lips, which recalled a past glory, a social Paradise for ever lost to them. Mrs Archibald described to her companion the scene in Lord Somerville’s library, when Temple had spoken what she had at the time considered such shameful words. However, she was beginning to have some dim understanding of what Sinclair had meant when he said that a blush at the right moment was a good thing; and she and Lord Mowbray felt somewhat uncomfortable as they realised the anomaly of recalling a clothed Society in their state of nature. For the first time in their artificial lives did their two hearts throb and long for something they had never known, and as they talked bitter tears trickled down their pale cheeks. When they had nearly finished their task of disentangling the skein of their complex past lives, they came to a full stop; and behind the mass of frivolity and petty sorrowings evoked by their anxious brain, they remarked in a corner, a dying Cupid, panting for life, whom they decided to revive. But here we must stop, for it does not do always to analyse the motives of human beings; suffice it to say that in their frenzied revolt against the uncongeniality of their surroundings, they fell into each other’s arms. Often a puerile cause has been the means of working out a momentous effect. But a remarkable thing occurred to these two recalcitrants, as they stood heart to heart, lip to lip: one by one their prejudices disappeared, the shallowness of their social past dawned upon them, and they now saw the meaning of their present condition.
They returned to London, to the great world, as man and wife, and completely cured of their feverish delusion.