The young men laughed. “If only everybody could go away when he was bored,” cried Hadria, “how peaceful it would be, and what small tennis-parties one would have!”
“Always excepting tennis-parties at this house,” said Hubert Temperley.
“I don’t think any house would survive,” said Miss Du Prel. “If people do not meet to exchange ideas, I can’t see the object of their meeting at all.”
“What a revolutionary sentiment!” cried Temperley, laughing. “Where would society be, on that principle?”
Hadria was called away, at that moment, and the group politely wavered between duty and inclination. Temperley and Miss Du Prel strolled off together, his vast height bent deferentially towards her. This air of deference proved somewhat superficial. Miss Du Prel found that his opinions were of an immovable order, with very defined edges. In some indescribable fashion, those opinions partook of the general elegance of his being. Not for worlds would he have harboured an exaggerated or immoderate idea. In politics he was conservative, but he did not abuse his opponents. He smiled at them; he saw no reason for supposing that they did not mean quite as well as he did, possibly better. What he did see reason to doubt, was their judgment. His tolerance was urbane and superior. On all questions, however, whether he knew much about them or little, his judgment was final and absolute. He swept away whole systems of thought that had shaken the world, with a confident phrase. Miss Du Prel looked at him with increasing amazement. He seemed unaccustomed to opposition.
“A vast deal of nonsense is talked in the name of philosophy,” he observed, in a tone of gay self-confidence peculiar to him, and more indicative of character than even what he said. “People seem to think that they have only to quote Spencer or Huxley, or take an interest in heredity, to justify themselves in throwing off all the trammels, as they would regard them, of duty and common sense.”
“I have not observed that tendency,” said Miss Du Prel.
“Really. I regret to say that I notice everywhere a disposition to evade responsibilities which, in former days, would have been honestly and contentedly accepted.”
“Our standards are all changing,” said Miss Du Prel. “It does not follow that they are changing for the worse.”
“It seems to me that they are not so much changing, as disappearing altogether,” said Temperley cheerfully, “especially among women. We hear a great deal about rights, but we hear nothing about duties.”