Lady Southwold murmurs: “Give them some tea, Wilfrid; they are all growing cross.”
“As you please. But it is to me absolutely frightful to see how unconscious of your own doom, and how indifferent to the great movements of the day you all are——”
“If they are really great movements, they’ll move without us; you can’t stop an iceberg or an earthquake with your little finger. But there’s a good deal of grit in the old order of things still,” says the duke. “Yes, I’ll have a cup of tea, Wilfrid; I see you’ve got it there.”
Bertram murmurs wearily: “Critchett—tea!”
“Yes, sir,” says a person who is the perfection of all the virtues of valetdom.
Marlow, wholly undisturbed by the insults which have been heaped on him, calls out:
“And temperance drinks, Critchett! Lemons divorced from rum, sterilised milk, barley-water, tartaric acid——”
“Mr. Bertram,” says Cicely Seymour, “how do you reconcile your conscience to the debasing offices which you employ Critchett to fill for you?”
“Or to the fact of keeping a Critchett at all?” adds his aunt Southwold.
“Surely it’s Critchett who keeps him, ——, out of a strait-waistcoat?” murmurs Marlow.