The social system might be attacked, disintegrated, and shown wanting in the eyes of amateur modern paganism; the spirit of the age might be arraigned and condemned by twenty juries of the advanced salons; modish culture might stalk hock-deep in the wreckage of civilisation; but—to Caroline the prestige of the army was vested in the person of Bassishaw. Bassishaw’s mode of love-making had been compared to its disfavour with the practices of Roman legions.
She raised her head disdainfully without glancing at the unconscious Mr. Eleanor Macquoid, spoke half over her shoulder, and condemned a great nation in Bassishaw’s defence.
“I don’t think very highly, Mr. Macquoid, of the Romans. I think that when they—that on that occasion at least—they were horrid, and—and—unnecessarily rough, and that nice people would never have done it. It may make good pictures, but one would rather be a pleasant person than an unpleasant picture. And I don’t care a bit what anybody says; soldiers are just as good as—anybody else.”
And better, beyond comparison better, her shoulders seemed to say as she turned away. Macquoid shifted his other elbow to the piano, and then looked at me.
“I am afraid, Mr. Butterfield, that I have not been able to help your sister much in the play. After all, the real impulse must come from within.”
“It is,” I replied, “a pleasing reticence when the real impulse stays there. The self-sacrifice imposed by art is not necessarily a sacrifice of one’s self.”
“Very true,” he answered approvingly, and took coffee.
XIII
POT LUCK
“Do you know, Butterfield,” Bassishaw said, “I don’t know how you get along—that is—get along, you know—as you do.”
The remark didn’t seem particularly illuminating, but he had been silent for ten minutes, and this appeared to be the result of his cogitation.