Bertram glances gratefully at her. “Precisely so, Miss Seymour.”
“But what could you substitute?”
“Oh, my dear Cicely, read his paper the Age to Come, and pray spare us such a discussion before dinner,” says Lady Southwold, with impatience.
“But what would you substitute?” says Cicely Seymour, with persistent interest in the topic.
“Yes; what would you substitute?” asks the practical politician.
Bertram is out of temper; these acquaintances and relatives worried him into giving this exposition of his altruistic and socialistic views, and then they brought a fool with them like Marlow, and have turned the whole thing into a farce. To Bertram his views were the most serious things in creation. He does not choose to have them set up like croquet pegs for imbeciles to bowl at in an idle hour.
“I would abolish all government,” he replies, very decidedly.
“Oh!” Both the politician and Cicely Seymour look a little astonished.
“But how then would you control people?”
“Sane people do not require to be controlled.”