“Then Heaven help her particular station,” cried Bertram.
“I don’t suppose it’s struck you that it’s a very awkward one,” replied Lord Spratte, mildly. “A great family might have lived down a match of this sort, (I don’t want to hurt your feelings,) but we’re such very small fry. You think us snobs, and so we are. You can’t expect anythin’ else from people who’ve only just emerged from the middle-classes. You know, I have an impression that your grandfather and mine were great pals. I’m sure they used to hobnob and drink brandy and water together in seedy public-houses. Do you remember the Egyptian usurper who made a wine-cup into the image of a god, for the edification of his former boon-fellows? Well, we’re somethin’ like that astute monarch; we have to use all sorts of stratagems to persuade the world of our gentility. If this affair between you and Winnie had come to anything, do you know what she would have done? She would have tried all her life to live up to Mayfair, and it would have meant either that you were dragged away from your proper work, or that she would have been eternally dissatisfied. My dear boy, she would have reproached you every day for marrying her.”
He stopped, feeling that the words were not coming as he wished. He wanted to be kind, and there were a few useful things he thought Bertram ought to know. But he could not properly order what was in his mind. Bertram felt the intention and presently answered less bitterly:
“Why do you take the trouble to say all this?”
“I wish I had my brother Theodore’s eloquence. He’d say what I want to in the most beautiful language. He’s not a bad chap, although you probably don’t set much store on him. He’s so fortunate as to feel himself a person of importance; I don’t. I always wish I’d been the son of nobody in particular. It bores me to death to go about under the shadow of my father’s name. I can’t think why it is, but I go through life feeling as if I were perpetually wearin’ fancy-dress. I haven’t read your book. I believe it’s very instructive, and at my time of life I avoid instruction. But when Winnie said she was going to marry you, I went one day to hear you speak at a meetin’ in Holborn. I was never so surprised in my life.”
“Why?”
“I discovered that you were sincere. By Jupiter, how you would have bored Winnie if things had gone on much longer! Most of those worthy folk who advocate reform and lord knows what, have their own axes to grind. My brother Theodore, for instance, wants a bishopric, others want a seat in the Cabinet or a sinecure. Even now I believe there are some who want a peerage, though for the life of me I can’t see what good they think it’ll do them.”
Lord Spratte laughed a little and threw away his cigarette.
“They make a great fuss about redressin’ the people’s wrongs, but in their heart of hearts I believe they’re precious indifferent to them. They want the power which they can cozen out of the mob, or they think the Government will stop their mouths with a fat billet. At first I had an idea you were an impostor like the rest of them, but when you stood up on your hind legs I found out you were nothin’ of the kind. You were the only speaker among all those M.P.’s and clerics and millionaires who seemed to mean a word you said. Your speech was quite out of the picture, but it was interesting. Personally I loathe democracy and socialism and all the rest of it, but honest conviction amuses me. To see it on a platform is quite a new sensation.”
It made Lord Spratte uncommonly nervous to play the heavy father, and he feared that he was very ridiculous. He waited for Bertram to make an observation.