"And for a number of others," I said.
The voice above me grew low and died away. Someone began to play an air from "La Bohème."
"For anybody without imagination," he murmured. "You've been in the House for nearly a year now, George; d'you think the world's a happier place?"
"I'm afraid there's no such thing as statutory happiness, Raney."
A vision of Baxter-Whittingham floated before my eyes, and an echo of his phrases came back to my ears. O'Rane picked up a handful of gravel, seated himself on the parapet of the terrace and began tossing stones into the lake.
"I'm looking for inspiration, George," he said, after a pause. "Just now I'm at a loose end. I've been through Melton and the House, I've seen about a dozen different kinds of working-class life, and before I came to England I took part in the great primitive struggle for existence. Now, if I like, I suppose I can get a fellowship, go into one of the professions, lead a comfortable life...." His voice rose a tone and quickened into excitement. "George, it won't do. We pretend the world's civilized, and yet every now and again some murderous war breaks out. We've been drinking champagne up there, and there are people dying of starvation. There are people dying of cancer and phthisis—and we haven't stopped it. There are young girls being turned into harlots hourly. Hunger, disease, death and the loss of a soul's purity. It won't do." He sighed, and a shadow of despair came over his dark eyes. "I talked to Jim Loring in the same strain a few weeks ago; he's waiting for the world to come back to a belief in God. Poor old Jim hasn't learned much mediaeval history! I talked to your uncle yesterday: he's a social Darwinian—these scourges are all divinely appointed to keep us from getting degenerate. I talked to you this morning, and you virtually told me five years of Liberal Government would set it all right. They won't! It isn't the law that's wrong, it's the soul of man. You've had workhouses for two-thirds of a century, and people still starve. In half a dozen years we've seen war in South Africa and Manchuria. Men still seduce women; there's cruelty to children and animals that would make you sick if you heard a thousandth part of it; there are blind, hare-lipped babies being born to parents of tainted blood.... It won't do, George."
I seated myself on the parapet beside him and lit a cigarette.
"Will you tell me the remedy, Raney?" I asked.
He looked at me for a moment before answering.
"Would you act upon it if I did?"