“Poor people? Gott bewahre!” she cried. “Did you think I meant the workers? Oh no! I am not interested in them. I am interested in your Rodens and your Ferribys and your Whites, and even in your Tony Cornish. I wonder who will quarrel and who will—well, do the contrary, and what will come of it all? In my day young people were brought together by a common pleasure, but that has gone out of fashion. And now it is a common endeavour to achieve the impossible, to check the stars in their courses by the holding of mixed meetings, and the enunciation of second-hand platitudes respecting the poor and the masses—this is what brings the present generation into that intercourse which ends in love and marriage and death—the old programme. And it is from that point of view alone, mon ami, that I take a particle of interest in your Malgamite scheme.”
All of which Tony Cornish remembered later; for it was untrue. He rose to take his leave with polite hopes of seeing her again.
“Oh, do not hurry away,” she said. “I am expecting Dorothy Roden, who promised to come to tea. She will be disappointed not to see you.”
Cornish laughed in his light way. “You are kind in your assumptions,” he answered. “Miss Roden is barely aware of my existence, and would not know me from Adam.”
Nevertheless he stayed, moving about the room for some minutes looking at the flowers and the pictures, of which he knew just as much as was desirable and fashionable. He knew what flowers were “in,” such as fuchsias and tulips, and what were “out,” such as camellias and double hyacinths. About the pictures he knew a little, and asked questions as to some upon the walls that belonged to the Dutch school. He was of the universe, universal. Then he sat down again unobtrusively, and Mrs. Vansittart did not seem to notice that he had done so, though she glanced at the clock.
A few minutes later Dorothy came in. She changed colour when Mrs. Vansittart half introduced Cornish with the conventional, “I think you know each other.”
“I knew you were coming to The Hague,” she said, shaking hands with Cornish. “I had a letter from Joan the other day. They all are coming, are they not? I am afraid Joan will be very much disappointed in me. She thinks I am wrapped up heart and soul in the malgamiters—and I am not, you know.”
She turned with a little laugh, and appealed to Mrs. Vansittart, who was watching her closely, as if Dorothy were displaying some quality or point hitherto unknown to the older woman. The girl's eyes were certainly brighter than usual.
“Joan takes some things very seriously,” answered Cornish.
“We all do that,” said Mrs. Vansittart, without looking up from the tea-table at which she was engaged. “Yes; it is a mistake, of course.”