'Why, certainly.'
'I think the thing is detestable, anyhow,' Lord Courtreeve interposed, 'and I am quite sure it does not represent the tone of English society.'
'So am I,' Sir Rupert added.
'But you must admit that it is the tone which does prevail,' the Dictator said pressingly, for he wanted very much to study this question down to its roots.
'I am afraid it is the prevailing social tone of London—I mean the West End,' Sir Rupert admitted reluctantly. 'But you know what a fashion there is in these things, as well as in others. The fashion in a woman's gown or a man's hat does not always represent the shape of a woman's body or the size of a man's head.'
'It sometimes represents the shape of the man's mind, and the size of the woman's heart,' said Rivers.
'Well, anyhow,' Sir Rupert persevered, 'we all know that a great deal of this sort of talk is talked for want of anything else to say, and because it amuses most people, and because anybody can talk cheap cynicism; I believe that London society is healthy at the core.'
'But come now—let us understand?' Ericson asked; 'how can the society be healthy at the core for which you yourself make the apology by saying that it parrots the jargon of a false and loathsome creed because it has nothing better to say, or because it hopes to be thought witty by parroting it? Come, Sir Rupert, you won't maintain that?'
'I will maintain,' Sir Rupert said, 'that London society is not as bad as it seems.'
'Oh, well, I have no doubt you are right in that,' the Dictator hastily replied. 'But what I think so melancholy to see is that degeneracy of social life in England—I mean in London—which apes a cynicism it doesn't feel.'