Maurice ventured no comment on a subject so poignantly intimate as Lady Forsyth’s anxiety for her one remaining son; nor did Mark seem to expect any. He took a few pulls at his pipe, then reverted to generalities.
‘Don’t write me down an unfeeling brute, Maurice,’ he said with his friendly smile. ‘War’s the roughest game on earth and we’ve got to be a bit rough with ourselves if we’re to play it to any purpose. I’m horribly well aware that the “sorrowful great gift of imagination” is the very deuce on these occasions. A shade less of it in us, who have to do the killing, and a shade more of it in our Westminster Olympians—who have to do the foreseeing and forestalling—would be a pleasanter business for ourselves and a better look-out for the country. They’re an agile crew with their tongues; and if words were bullets, we might be in Berlin the week after next! Personally, I’d like to see most of ’em scrapped “for the duration of the war.” Kitchener paramount, with a picked Council, would pull us through in half the time. But that’s not my business nor yours. It’s for us to play up all we can; thank God for one real Man, and not waste our precious energies in grumbling. There’s a sermon for you. And you brought it on yourself!’
Maurice rose, flung away his cigarette end, and strolled down the length of the room and back.
‘It’s done me a power of good being here,’ he said, coming to a standstill by the mantelpiece and contemplating Mark’s ‘Triumph.’ ‘You’re a man as well as an artist, Forsyth; and the bulk of us are not; I, personally, am cursed with too much of Uncle Michael in my composition.’
Mark laughed.
‘Confound your Uncle Michael! You run along and enlist and kill every German you can lay hands to and your composition will take care of itself. A wee bit stiffening’s all you want; and a wee bit taste of red-hot reality will put some backbone into your studio-bred art, that ennobles nothing and nobody and doesn’t even want to make itself understood. It’s just on the cards that this war—when we’re through with it—may give us an altogether saner and more robust revival of art that will spring naturally from a more robust conception of life: an art that will genuinely reflect the spirit of the age, as Michael Angelo reflects the Renaissance. Our present age of machinery and money-getting has precious little spirit to reflect. No collective convictions. Practically no faith, except in success. Consequently life has no vital use for art: and we’re ousted by the cinematograph. A few, like myself and Sinclair, still hang on to beauty and the classics. The rest, like the bulk of your advanced friends, say “Ugliness, be thou my beauty” and proceed to make a little hell of their own in the Grafton Galleries! Just at present, Maurice, the mere artist is the most superfluous creature on God’s earth....’
He suddenly laughed and checked himself. ‘Off on my hobby-horse again! Why the deuce don’t you chuck a book at me, old chap? Too much spouting at these recruiting shows will make me an infliction to my friends. Ah—there goes Mrs. Melrose! Joy for Mother! Likewise the devout Mrs. Clutterbuck, who thinks to advertise her own virtue by maligning better folk than herself. Come on down. We’ll get the tail-end of tea and the poor dears will need cheering up.’
They found the poor dears in very fair spirits—considering. Helen was delighted at recapturing Sheila; and the girl herself made no secret of her distaste for the restless superficial activities of her own home. A telegram from Sir Nevil Sinclair explained his non-appearance and begged Mark not to fail him at the Bramleigh meeting next day. Then, tea being removed and the others dispersed, Mark found himself alone with Sheila, whom he had scarcely seen since the day of Bel’s regeneration.
‘It’s good to get you back again, Mouse,’ he said, with brotherly directness: and as she merely smiled without looking up, he allowed his eyes to linger on her face. ‘But I’m not sure I approve of the massage plan, specially if it means careering off to France with Miss Videlle.’