Hardly a great and stately house in England but was connected with him by ties of kindred. His falling away was a menace to all of them in its opening of possibilities, a real grief to many of them. There had been terrible hours of expostulation, dreadful scenes of sorrow and recrimination.
Compromise had assailed him on every side. His wife would have been received everywhere—it was astonishing how Court and Society had discovered that Mary Marriott was one of themselves after all—a "Mem-Sahib." He could do what he liked within reason, and still keep his place.
A prime minister had pointed out to him that no one at all would object to his countenance of the Socialistic party. He might announce his academic adherence to Socialism as often and as loudly as he pleased. It would, indeed, be a good thing for Socialism, in which—so his lordship was pleased to say—there was indubitably a germ of economic good. All great movements had begun slowly. These things must ripen into good and prove themselves by their own weight. But it was economically wrong, and subversive of all theories of progress, that a sudden and overpowering weight should be put into one side of the scale by a single individual.
"It will disturb everything" said the Prime Minister. "And any one who, from an individual opinion, disturbs the balance of affairs is doing grave, and perhaps irreparable, harm."
In short, they would have allowed him to do anything, but give up his PROPERTY. They would have let him marry any one if he did not give up his PROPERTY.
For all of them had won their property and sovereignty by predatory strength throughout the centuries, or the years. Landowners of ancient descent, millionaires of yesterday, all knew the power of what they held and had. All loved that power and were determined to keep it for themselves and their descendants.... And, all had sons, young and generous of mind as yet, to whom the duke's example might prove an incentive to a repetition of such an abnegation.
They were very shrewd and far-seeing, all these people. Collectively, they were the most cultured, beautiful, and charming folk in England. They were the rulers of England, and by birth, temper, and inheritance he was one of them. The pressure put upon him had been enormous, the strain terrible.
A resolution made in a moment of great emotion, and an enthusiasm fostered by every incident of time and circumstance, seems a very different thing regarded dispassionately when the blood is cool, and, so to speak, the footlights are lowered, the curtain down, the house empty.
Once, indeed, he had nearly given in. He had been sent for privately to the Palace, and some wise and kindly words had been spoken to him there by A Personage to whom he could not but listen with the gravest and most loyal attention.
Compromise was once more suggested, he was bidden to remember his order and his duty to it. He was again told that his opinions were his own, that short of taking the irrevocable step he might do almost anything.