“It’s not so coarse as revolution,” said Bertram, bitterly. “It’s more polite than a revolutionary mob would be, if they caught you with a silk handkerchief up your sleeve. Don’t you realise that if you and other young fools who play about with the revolutionary idea were ever to find yourselves in that state of things, your necks would be wrung first by a mob that’s not out for elegance? They’d just wipe you out like midges. Don’t you understand that if England were to go in for revolution, all Europe would be dragged down with her, and war would be child’s play to that anarchy and horror?”
“I see you belong to the reactionary set,” said Melvin, with an air of bravado, but his voice was not quite steady. “Doubtless you uphold the principles of The Morning Post.”
“I try to see things with commonsense,” said Bertram, “not like a child, ignorant of realities. I’ve seen war. I don’t want to see revolution. I imagine it’s worse.”
It was Janet who poured oil on the troubled waters.
“Sir Faithful,” she said, “verily you speak the words of truth and wisdom. This child has been well rated. But of your mercy, remember that this is a bower of fair ladies, and not a tilting-ground for angry knights.”
“Sorry!” he said, and his rage died down. Lucas Melvin retired hurt, and soon the others went, leaving him last, and alone with Janet.
“I behaved like a ‘muddied oaf,’ ” he said. “Do you forgive me?”
She forgave him so well that she sat on the floor by his side with her hands clasping her knees, talking about the queer complexities of life, the muddle in human nature, the mixed motives of men and women. Presently she told him that he had better go home. It was unfair to his wife to stay so late.
“Joyce won’t be back yet,” he said, “and I hate going home to a lonely house.”
She looked up into his face searchingly.