Blenkiron protested cheerfully. “Not a bit, my dear fellow. We pride ourselves on our broad mindedness. If you preached reactionary Anglicanism here you would be listened to with respect and interest. On the other hand, we expect the same consideration to be shown to the apostles—if you will pardon the word—of our advanced thought. Your experiences were, beyond doubt, very terrible. But we admit the necessity of a reign of terror. We shall have it in this country within the next ten years. Possibly—probably—all of us here and all the little gods we cling to will be swept away like the late Russian aristocracy and intelligentsia. But suppose we are all—Dawkins, my sister, and myself—prepared to suffer martyrdom for the sake of humanity, what would you have to say against us? Nay—you can be quite frank. Words cannot hurt us.”
“I should say you ought to be tied up in Bedlam,” said Triona.
“Do you agree with that, Miss Gale?” said Roger Blenkiron, turning on her suddenly.
She reflected for a moment. Then she replied: “If you can prove beyond question that in fifty years’ time you will create a more beautiful world, there’s something in your theories. If you can’t, you all ought to be shot.”
He laughed and held out his hand. “That’s straight from the shoulder. That’s what we like to hear. Shake hands on it.” He drew a little book from his pocket and scribbled a memorandum. “You’re on the free-list of The Signal. I think Agnes has your address. You’ll find in it overwhelming proof. Perhaps, Mr. Triona, too, would like——”
But Triona shook his head. “As a technical alien perhaps it would be inadvisable for me to be in receipt of revolutionary literature.”
“I quite understand,” smiled Blenkiron, returning the book to his pocket.
Dawkins melted away. Other guests took leave of their host. Triona and Olivia, making a suffocating course towards the door, were checked by Agnes Blenkiron who was eager to introduce them to Tom Pyefinch who, during the war had suffered, at the hands of a capitalist government, the tortures of the hero too brave to fight.
“Oh, no, no,” cried Olivia horrified.
Agnes did not hear. But Pyefinch, a pallid young man with a scrubby black moustache, was too greatly occupied with his immediate circle to catch his hostess’s eye. From his profane lips Olivia learned that patriotism was the most blatant of superstitions: that the attitude of the fly preening itself over its cesspool was that of the depraved and mindless being who could take pride in being an Englishman. He was not peculiarly hard on England. All other countries were the mere sewerages of the nationalities that inhabited them. The high ideals supposed to crystallize a nation’s life were but factitious and illusory, propagated by poets and other decadents in the pay of capitalists: in reality, patriotism only meant the common cause of the peoples floundering each in its separate sewer. . . .