'Yes, quite so. I am afraid I have forgotten the point on which Mr. Ericson desired to get information.' And Rivers smiled a bland smile without looking at Ericson. 'May I trouble you, Lord Courtreeve, for the cigarettes?'
'It was not merely a point, but a whole cresset of points—a cluster of points,' Ericson said, 'on every one of which I wished to have a tip of light. Is English social life to be judged of by the conversation and the canons of opinion which we find received in London society?'
'Certainly not,' Sir Rupert explained.
'Heaven forbid!' Lord Courtreeve added fervently.
'I don't quite understand,' said Soame Rivers.
'Well,' the Dictator explained, 'what I mean is this. I find little or nothing prevailing in London society but cheap cynicism—the very cheapest cynicism—cynicism at a farthing a yard or thereabouts. We all admire healthy cynicism—cynicism with a great reforming and purifying purpose—the cynicism that is like a corrosive acid to an evil system; but this West End London sham cynicism—what does that mean?'
'I don't quite know what you mean,' Soame Rivers said.
'I mean this, wherever you go in London society—at all events, wherever I go—I notice a peculiarity that I think did not exist, at all events to such an extent, in my younger days. Everything is taken with easy ridicule. A divorce case is a joke. Marriage is a joke. Love is a joke. Patriotism is a joke. Everybody is assumed, as a matter of course, to have a selfish motive in everything. Is this the real feeling of London society, or is it only a fashion, a sham, a grimace?'
'I think it is a very natural feeling,' Soame Rivers replied, with the greatest promptitude.
'And represents the true feeling of what are called the better classes of London?'