"You may keep your pity, Phillis, for some one who deserves it better. Now let us take a cab and go to the Park. It is four years since I saw the Park."
It was five o'clock. The Park was fuller than when he saw it last. It grows more crowded year after year, as the upward pressure of an enriched multitude makes itself felt more and more. There was the usual throng about the gates, of those who come to look for great people, and like to tell whom they recognised, and who were pointed out to them. There were the pedestrians on either side the road; civilians after office hours; bankers and brokers from the City; men up from Aldershot; busy men hastening home; loungers leaning on the rails; curious colonials gazing at the carriages; Frenchmen trying to think that Hyde Park cannot compare with the Bois de Boulogne; Germans mindful of their mighty army, their great sprawling Berlin, the gap of a century between English prosperity and Teutonic militarism, and as envious as philosophy permits; Americans owning that New York, though its women are lovelier, has nothing to show beside the Park at five on a spring afternoon,—all the bright familiar scene which Colquhoun remembered so well.
"Four years since I saw it last," he repeated to the girl. "I suppose there will be none of the faces that I used to know."
He was wrong. The first man who greeted him was his old Colonel. Then he came across a man he had known in India. Then one whom he had last seen, a war correspondent, inside Metz. He shook hands with one, nodded to another, and made appointments with all at his club. And as each passed, he told something about him to his ward.
"That is my old Colonel—your father's brother officer. The most gallant fellow who ever commanded a regiment. As soon as you are settled, I should like to bring him to see you. That is Macnamara of the London Herald—a man you can't get except in England. That is Lord Blandish; we were together up-country in India. He wrote a book about his adventures in Cashmere. I did not."
It was a new world to Phillis. All these carriages? these people: this crowd—who were they?
"They are not like the faces I see in the streets," she said.
"No. Those are faces of men who work for bread. These are mostly of men who work not at all, or they work for honour. There are two or three classes of mankind, you know, Phillis."
"Servants and masters?"
"Not quite. You belong to the class of those who need not work—this class. Your father knew all these people. It is a happy world in its way—in its way," he repeated, thinking of certain shipwrecks he had known. "Perhaps it is better to have to work. I do not know. Phillis, who——" He was going to ask her who was bowing to her, when he turned pale, and stopped suddenly. In the carriage which was passing within a foot of where they stood was a lady whom he knew—Mrs. Cassilis. He took off his hat, and Mrs. Cassilis stopped the carriage and held out her hand.