He sat down, flushed and excited. The company, moved by his enthusiasm, applauded encouragingly. Ella rose.
“It will be a disgrace to us all if the motion is carried,” she said, turning round to the general body. “Let us fill up a subscription list now. I will head it with five thousand pounds.” She sat down. There was a cold silence. Her heart sank with a feeling of shame at her outburst. Qui m'aime me suive is sometimes an excellent battle-cry. When no one follows, it falls deadly flat. She realised that most of the people there knew her personal interest in the affair, and her cheek grew hotter. Roderick stepped boldly down to her, and whispered in her ear.
“You have the worshipping gratitude of all my life,” said he.
A man rose at the back of the room and began to speak. There was a rustle of garments as every one turned to look at him. He was a well-known journalist, the editor of a weekly paper that made a specialty of diagnosing unsound institutions. Roderick tugged at his Vandyke beard and watched him narrowly. He began in a light bantering tone, described with delicate satiric touch the objects of the Colony. Then he playfully analysed the idyllic conditions under which the colonists would work. The meeting laughed. He sketched the boredom, the universal hatred of the minor poet who insisted on reading his poems aloud to the assembled Colony, the flirtations, imbroglios, jealousies, the lady who paid nothing and went about declaring that the food was not fit to eat. One by one he touched off the types. The meeting was delighted. Then the speaker launched out into a trenchant indictment of the whole scheme, disclosed its absurdity, its financial rottenness, its infinite futility. He ended amid rounds of laughter and applause. Ridicule had killed the scheme outright. There were cries that the motion should be put. It was carried almost by acclamation. Thus ended the great Walden Art Colony.
“I did think you would stand by it, Urquhart,” said Roderick to the young semimillionaire.
The people were beginning to disperse, among much laughter and gossip. Ella had lingered on an imploring sign from Roderick. Urquhart stifled a yawn and buttoned his frock-coat.
“My dear fellow,” said he, from the heights of his superior culture, “if you would only study Pradovitch,—— the one genius this century has produced,—study him as I have done, you would not fail to be convinced that Art is the leprosy of life.”
For once Roderick lost his temper. An evil look came into his face.
“What a God-forsaken fool you are!” he snarled out. And turning on his heel he joined Ella.
The young man turned to Lord Eglington.