The Marriage of William Ashe

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

He was thinking of the other members of a certain group, at that time well known in London society—a group characterized chiefly by the beauty, extravagance, and audacity of the women belonging to it. It was by no means a group of mere fashionables. It contained a large amount of ability and accomplishment; some men of aristocratic family, who were also men of high character, with great futures before them; some persons from the literary or artistic world, who possessed, besides their literary or artistic gifts, a certain art of agreeable living, and some few others—especially young girls—admitted generally for some peculiar quality of beauty or manner outside the ordinary canons. Money was really presupposed by the group as a group. The life they belonged to was a life of the rich, the houses they met in were rich houses. But money as such had no power whatever to buy admission to their ranks; and the members of the group were at least as impatient of the claims of mere wealth as they were of those of mere virtue.

On the whole the group was an element of ferment and growth in the society that had produced it. Its impatience of convention and restraint, the exaltation of intellectual or artistic power which prevailed in it, and even the angry opposition excited by its pretensions and its exclusiveness, were all, perhaps, rather profitable than harmful at that moment of our social history. Old customs were much shaken; the new were shaping themselves, and this daring coterie of young and brilliant people, living in one another's houses, calling one another by their Christian names, setting a number of social rules at defiance, discussing books, making the fame of artists, and, now and then, influencing politics, were certainly helping to bring the new world to birth. Their foes called them "The Archangels," and they themselves had accepted the name with complacency.

Kitty, of course, was an Archangel, so was Mrs. Alcot. Cliffe had belonged to them before his travels began. Louis Harman was more or less of their tribe, and Lady Tranmore, though not herself an Archangel, entertained the set in London and in the country. Like various older women connected with the group, she was not of them, but she "harbored" them.

Darrell was well aware that he did not belong to them, though personally he was acquainted with almost all the members of the group. He was not completely indifferent to his exclusion; and this fact annoyed him more than the exclusion itself.

He had scarcely finished his inspection of the print when the door again opened and Geoffrey Cliffe entered. Darrell had not yet seen him since his return and since his attack on the government had made him the hero of the hour. Of the newspaper success Darrell was no less jealous and contemptuous than Lady Tranmore, though for quite other reasons. But he knew better than she the intellectual quality of the man, and his disdain for the journalist was tempered by his considerable though reluctant respect for the man of letters.

They greeted each other coolly, while Cliffe, not seeing his hostess, looked round him with annoyance.

"Well, we shall probably entertain each other," said Darrell, as they sat down. "Lady Kitty often forgets her engagements."

"Does she?" said Cliffe, coldly, pretending to glance through a book beside him. It touched his vanity that his hostess was not present, and still more that Darrell should suppose him a person to be forgotten. Darrell, however, who had no mind for any discomfort that might be avoided, made a few dexterous advances, Cliffe's brow relaxed, and they were soon in conversation.

The position of the ministry naturally presented itself as a topic. Two or three retirements were impending, the whole position was precarious. Would the cabinet be reconstructed without a dissolution, or must there be an appeal to the country?

Cliffe was passionately in favor of the latter course. The party fortunes could not possibly be retrieved without a general shuffling of the cards, and an opportunity for some wholly fresh combination involving new blood.