To prove the expenditure of fortune he seized a fresh bottle of Bollinger which the butler had just opened and filled Baltazar’s glass and his own.
“If you don’t drink, you’re a pro-German. To hell with the Kaiser.”
Baltazar drank the toast politely and patriotically; the merest sip of champagne; for beyond the first brandy and soda which had been poured down his parched and exhausted throat, he had kept his vow of abstinence, in spite of his host’s continued pressure. He felt sure of himself now; wondered how he could ever have brought himself to the present Pillivant condition. He liked Pillivant less than ever; yet he began to be fascinated by the truth concerning Pillivant which rose unashamed to the surface of the wine-cup.
When the cigars were put on the table, Mrs. Pillivant rose. Baltazar opened the door for her to pass out. On the first occasion of his doing so, the first time he had come down to dinner, she had been puzzled, and asked him whether he was not going to smoke with her husband. She still did not seem to understand the conventional courtesy. When the door was closed behind her, Pillivant drew a great breath of relief.
“Pity you won’t drink,” said he, refilling his glass. “We might have made a night of it. And this is such good stuff, too. About the most expensive I could buy.”
After that, impelled by the craving for self-revelation, he took up his parable again, and entertained his guest with many details of opinions, habits and actions, that had not been fit for wifely ears. When the stream of confidence at last grew maudlin, Baltazar, pleading an invalid’s fatigue after a heavy day, bade him good night.
“I’ve been so long out of touch with English life,” said he, “that it is most interesting to me to meet a typical Englishman.”
Pillivant clapped him heavily on the shoulder.
“You’re right, my boy,” he asserted thickly. “A downright, patriotic John Bull Englishman. The sort of stuff that’s winning the war for you, and don’t you make no mistake about it.”
Baltazar went to bed pondering over his host. The annihilation of his own life’s work did not bear thinking about. That way lay madness. Pillivant brought a new interest. For all his adventurous journeyings he had not met the Pillivant type—or if he had fortuitously encountered it, he had passed it by in academic scorn. Had his ironical remark any basis of truth? Was Pillivant after all typical of the forces behind the war in this unknown modern England? Vulgarity, bluster, self-seeking, corruption, hypocrisy? The old aristocratic order changing into something loathsomely new? Pillivant posed as the successful man, engaged in vast affairs, working night and day for his country—he was only snatching, he had explained, a three weeks’ rest at this little country shanty which he had not seen for nearly a year. The luxury of the “shanty” proved his success; proved the magnitude of his dealings with the Government. So far there was no brag. But how came it that the Government put itself into the hands of such a man, openly boastful of his exploitation of official ineptitude? He could not be unique. There must be hundreds, thousands like him. Was he, in sober earnest, a typical modern Englishman? If so, thought Baltazar, God help England.