“You shall have it gratis,” said Eddy. “It is obviously, as the eminent rationalist puts it, precisely what you need.”
Nevill said, “By the way, what’s happening to that Radical paper of poor Hugh Datcherd’s? Is it dead?”
“Yes. It couldn’t have survived Datcherd; no one else could possibly take it on. Besides, he financed it entirely himself; it never anything near paid its way, of course. It’s a pity; it was interesting.”
“Like it’s owner,” Mrs. Crawford remarked. “He too, one gathers, was a pity, though no doubt an interesting one. The one failure in a distinguished family.”
“I should call all the Datcherds a pity, if you ask me,” said Nevill. “They’re wrong-headed Radicals. All agnostics, too, and more or less anti-church.”
“All the same,” said his aunt, “they’re not failures, mostly. They achieve success; even renown. They occasionally become cabinet ministers. I ask no more of a family than that. You may be as wrong-headed, radical, and anti-church as you please, Nevill, if you attain to being a cabinet minister. Of course they have disadvantages, such as England expecting them not to invest their money as they would prefer, and so on; but on the whole an enviable career. Better even than running a paper which meets a long-felt demand.”
“But the paper’s much more fun,” Molly put in, and her aunt returned, “My dear child, we are not put into this troubled world to have fun, though I have noticed that you labour under that delusion.”
The young man from the Foreign Office said, “It’s not a delusion that can survive in my profession, anyhow. I must be getting back, I’m afraid,” and they all went away to do something else. Eddy arranged to meet Molly and her aunt at tea-time, and take them to Jane Dawn’s studio; he had asked her if he might bring them to see her drawings.
They met at Mrs. Crawford’s club, and drove to Blackfriars’ Road.
“Where?” inquired Mrs. Crawford, after Eddy’s order to the driver.