"These are very new thoughts to me," he said, "and you must forgive me if I cannot immediately assimilate them."
"Quite so," Fabian Rose broke in, "but perhaps some day your Grace will get more light upon these subjects. It is impossible for you and us to think alike in any particular. Our whole lives and environment have been entirely different. Some men upon a mountain survey a landscape; others see nothing but a map. I agree with Mr. Conrad to a certain extent, but he would be the very last person to call me an orthodox Christian all the same. As one looks round it really does often seem that when Christ died the religion of Christ died too. Instead of that we have only the 'Christian religion' nowadays. But we must not tire you, you must get up all your strength to-day, for your removal to Lord Camborne's house to-morrow—for your removal out of our lives," he concluded, with an unusual sadness in his voice, "for our ways lie very far apart."
"If you will allow me, Mr. Rose," the duke answered, "our ways will not lie very far apart. Thinking differently as we do, looking upon these problems through different pairs of spectacles, nevertheless it would be a grief to me if I thought that we were not to meet sometimes and to remain friends. What you have done for me is more than I can say, and I should be indeed ungrateful if the fact that we were in opposite camps prevented a hand-grasp now and then."
"Well, well," Rose answered, "I am sure it is very kind of you to say so, and we shall see what the future brings forth. At the same time it is only fair to tell you what I have not told you before—that I am organising an active campaign against you in the first instance, as a type of the class we desire to destroy, and for which we wish to substitute another."
"Dear me!" said the duke, smiling. "That sounds very dreadful, Mr. Rose. Do tell me what is going to happen. Are you going to blow up some more of my house in Piccadilly?"
"Oh, no," Rose replied, laughing. "Those are not our methods, and although they have not found out, I understand, who threw the bomb and destroyed the Florentine Vase, I am sure it was no member of the Socialistic party, to which I belong. We accomplish our ends by more peaceful methods, though infinitely stronger. No, duke, I will tell you frankly what is on the cards."
Mr. Rose paused for a moment, and then in a few sentences told his guest exactly, and in detail, all his plan for educating society to socialistic ideals by means of the theatre.
"And here," he concluded with a smile, as Mrs. Rose knocked at the door and entered with Mary Marriott, who was carrying a bunch of chrysanthemums in her hand, "and here is the girl who is to be the arch offender against your rights! Here is the heroine of the play! The artist whose influence shall be more powerful and far-reaching than a thousand lectures!"
The duke smiled. He was glad to see the beautiful girl whom he had got to know and like during the two or three times he had met her.
"Well," he said, "if privilege is to be destroyed it could be at no more kindly hands I am sure!"