“But surely you must expect them to be either angels or machines,” said Cecil. “Have you no enthusiasms, Sir Dugald?”
“I have preferences, unfortunately, but I do my best to nullify them. When I find myself sympathising with one party, I make it a point to do the other rather more than justice.”
“But that is unfair to the first party,” objected Cecil. “Why should they suffer because they have your sympathy?”
“I don’t know—to show them I am not an angel, I suppose,” said Sir Dugald.
“But still,” said Cecil, returning to the charge, “I can’t quite see why it should be so very wrong and dangerous for Dr Egerton to have said what he did.”
“Simply for this reason, that what he said was calculated to foster in the minds of the Armenians the mischievous delusion that they will be supported, unofficially at any rate, by England if they rebel. News of such a kind spreads like wildfire, and is likely to make the task of Turkish government more difficult. Now we are here to bolster up Turkey, as these people put ropes round an old house to keep it together in a storm, and Egerton tries to spoil our work.”
“But is it right to bolster up Turkey?” asked Cecil, doubtfully.
“Oh, if we are coming to questions of morals, I shall have to take a back seat,” said Sir Dugald. “I will only say this, I conscientiously believe that if Turkey fell to-morrow, a far worse tyranny would ensue. You would not remember the Polish horrors, but we heard plenty about them when I was young.”
“And Dr Yehudi has told me of the persecutions of the Jews,” murmured Cecil.
“Exactly. So you see what we are doing. We are keeping up a bad state of things for fear of a worse. The Turks are sensible enough not to kick, but we can’t expect them to like our helping them, and they don’t feel inclined to give us any assistance. They won’t make the slightest attempt to whitewash themselves in order to spare our feelings, or make our proceedings look better to the world. We do what we can to put down atrocities, but changes of policy at home and changes of ambassador at Constantinople have succeeded in frittering away most of our moral influence, and we can’t descend to brute force. It’s inexpedient, and it’s ungentlemanly. We are the stronger party, and we can’t hit a State weaker than ourselves. Now do you see where the doctor went wrong? He let his feelings carry him away, and said just what came into his head, regardless of all this. His tongue has got him into trouble before, you know.”