Poor Mr. Rogers blushed and looked most distressed, for that word is tabooed in this country, dear, and I doubt if the poor man ever heard it before. He saw my eyes dance, and gave me a look of such pained surprise that it was my turn to be distressed, for it is so cruel to shatter a man’s ideals! Bertie pursued all unconsciously:
“Can’t you see it from my point of view, Rogers? Ain’t you in the habit of standing by your friends in this country?”
“Certainly, Duke,” replied Mr. Rogers, suavely; he had quite recovered himself. “I think you will find Americans as loyal as any men on earth.”
“Not unless they go the whole length and stand by their own class when there is such a crying need for help as there is here. I suppose there’s a respectable number of gentlemen in the country, ain’t there?”
“A very large number. A highly respectable proportion of the seventy millions. I am constrained to make that admission, even though I hand you another weapon.”
“It is a weapon, by gad. And I’d like jolly well to understand your supineness. Perhaps you’ll wake up all in a moment and fling off your coats and go to work.”
“I wish I could think so. What we lack most, I fancy, is a leader, for unquestionably we have caste loyalty. But when all is said the upper-class in this country is small—compared to the vast sub-stratum—and the country is so huge that homogeneity is almost impossible. So far, every man has made his fight alone; and there is something pathetic in it—come to think of it.”
“I think those who have made the fight must be ripping fine men, and I’d like to meet some of them. Will any of them come up here this summer?”
Mr. Rogers shook his head. “I am sorry, but we do not happen to have any politicians in the club. I thought it over carefully and concluded that it was better not, for they cannot avoid knowing objectionable people who might manage to get themselves invited here, too.”
Again, I interposed before Bertie could answer. “What becomes of your law of progress? If it is as inborn and inevitable—unhinderable—as you say, why does it not sweep your class in its current? Surely that class is increased from year to year by ambitious recruits whose offspring will be as cultivated as you are to-day—that is part of your law of progress. It seems to me that a natural instinct should force you and your sort to labour to keep yourselves high above the masses and fill the great public offices of the country.”