‘Skepsey did come back to London with a rather damaged frontispiece,’ Victor said. ‘He can’t have joined those people?’
‘They may suit one of your militant peacemakers,’ interposed Fenellan. ‘The most placable creatures alive, and the surest for getting-up a shindy.’
‘Suit him! They’re the scandal of our streets.’ Victor was pricked with a jealousy of them for beguiling him of his trusty servant.
‘Look at your country, see where it shows its vitality,’ said Colney. ‘You don’t see elsewhere any vein in movement-movement,’ he harped on the word Victor constantly employed to express the thing he wanted to see. ‘Think of that, when the procession sets your teeth on edge. They’re honest foes of vice, and they move:—in England! Pulpit-preaching has no effect. For gross maladies, gross remedies. You may judge of what you are by the quality of the cure. Puritanism, I won’t attempt to paint—it would barely be decent; but compare it with the spectacle of English frivolity, and you’ll admit it to be the best show you make. It may still be the saving of you—on the level of the orderly ox: I ‘ve not observed that it aims at higher. And talking of the pulpit, Barmby is off to the East, has accepted a Shoreditch curacy, Skepsey tells me.’
‘So there’s the reason for our not seeing him!’ Victor turned to Nesta.
‘Papa, you won’t be angry with Skepsey if he has joined those people,’ said Nesta. ‘I’m sure he thinks of serving his country, Mr. Durance.’
Colney smiled on her. ‘And you too?’
‘If women knew how!’
‘They’re hitting on more ways at present than the men—in England.’
‘But, Mr. Durance, it speaks well for England when they’re allowed the chance here.’