Chapter VIII: Part 8

Gilbert had dedicated his life to the renascence of the drama and had written a couple of plays which, he admitted to his friends, had not got the right stuff in them. "I don't know enough yet," he said once to Henry, "but I'm learning...." His dramatic criticism was very pointed, and he speedily acquired a reputation among people who are interested in the theatre, as an acute but harsh critic, and already attempts had been made by theatrical managers either to bribe him or get him dismissed from his paper. The bribing process was quite delicately operated. One manager wrote to him, charmingly plaintive about his criticism, and invited him to put himself in the manager's place. "I assure you," he wrote, "I would willingly produce good work if I could get it, but I can't. Come and see me, and I'll show you a pile of plays that have arrived within the last fortnight. I know quite well, without reading them, that not one of them will be of the slightest worth!" And Gilbert had gone to see him, and had been received very charmingly and told how clever he was, and then the manager had offered to appoint him reader of plays at a pleasant fee!... Following that attempt at bribery came the anger of an actor-knight who declined to admit Gilbert to his theatre, a piece of petulance which delighted him.

"The great big balloon," he said to his editor when he was told of what the actor-knight had said over the telephone. "My Lord, when I hear him spouting blank verse through his nose!..."

"That's all very fine," the editor retorted ruefully, "but your criticism's doing us a lot of harm. Jefferson of the Torch Theatre cancelled his advertisement the day after your notice of his new play appeared!"

"Ridiculous ass!" said Gilbert.

"Well, if you say his play's the worst that's ever been put on any stage, what do you expect him to do? Fall on your neck and say, 'Bless you, brother!'? You might try to be kinder to them, Farlow, and do for the love of God remember the advertisement manager. If you could get the human note in your stuff!..."

"The what?"

"The human note. I'm a great believer in the human note."

Gilbert left the office as quickly as he could and went home. He came into the dining-room where the others were already seated at their meal.

"You're late again, Gilbert," said Roger. "Hand over your sixpence!"

Roger, who was never late for anything, had instituted a system of fines for those who were late for meals. The fine for unpunctuality at dinner was sixpence.

"I haven't got a tanner, damn it," Gilbert snapped, "and I'm looking for the human note. That's why I'm late. My heavenly father, I'm hungry! What is there?"

"Sixpence for being late for dinner," said Roger quietly, "and tuppence for blasphemy!"

He entered the amounts in the "Ledger," and then returned to his seat. "You already owe six and threepence," he said, as he sat down, "and this evening's fines bring it up to six and elevenpence. You ought to pay something on account, Gilbert!..."

"Pass the potatoes and don't bleat so much!" said Gilbert. "Look here, Quinny," he said as he helped himself to the potatoes, "what's the human note, and don't you think tuppence is too much for blasphemy?"

"Ask Ninian," Henry answered. "He knows all about humanity!"

"No, he doesn't. Bally mechanic! Aren't you, Ninian? Aren't you a damn little mechanic with a screw-driver for a soul!..."

"You'll get a punch on the jaw in a minute, young fellow me lad!" Ninian exclaimed, leaning over the table and slapping Gilbert on the cheek.

"Fined fourpence for threat of physical violence and ninepence for executing the same," Roger murmured. "I'll enter it presently."

"Somebody should slay Roger," Gilbert said. "Somebody should take hold of his neat little neck and wring it!..."

They finished their meal and sat back in their chairs, smoking and chattering.

"What's all this about the human note, Gilbert?" Henry asked, and Gilbert explained what had happened to him in the editor's room. "I stopped a bobby in the Strand and asked him about it," he said, "but he told me to move on. You ought to know what the human note is, Quinny. You're a novelist, and novelists are supposed to know everything nowadays!"

He did not wait for Henry to explain the meaning of the human note. "I know what Dilton means by it," he said. "When _he_ talks of the human note he means the greasy touch!"

"Slop in fact!" said Roger.

"That's it. Slop! My God, these journalists do love to splash about in their emotions. They can't mention the North Pole without gulping in their throats. Dilton gave me an example of the human note. There was a bye-election in the East End the other day and one of the candidates put his unfortunate infants into 'pearlies' and hawked them about the constituency in a costermonger's barrow, carrying a notice with 'Vote for Our Daddy!' on it. Dilton damned near blubbed when he told me about it!"

"Rage?" said Henry.

"Rage!" Gilbert exclaimed. "Good Lord, no! The man was moved, touched!... He blew his nose hard, and then told me that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin! I'm damned if he didn't write a leading article about it ... and they give him a couple of thousand a year for organising sniffs for the million. All over England, I suppose there were people snivelling over those brats and telling each other that one touch of nature makes the whole world kin!... Oof! gimme the whisky, somebody, for the love of the Lordy God! I want to be sick when I think of the human note!"

"Well, of course," said Roger, "the slop is there, and it's no good getting angry about it. What I want is a Party that won't deal in it. I've always believed that the mob likes an honest man, even if it does call him a Prig, and I'm perfectly certain that when a Prig gets let down by the mob it's because in some subconscious way it knows he's only pretending to be honest ... unless, of course, it's gone off its head with passion of some sort: Boer war jingoism and that kind of thing. And my notion of a member of parliament is a man who represents some degree of general feeling. If he doesn't represent that general feeling he can only do one of two things: try to convert the general opinion to his point of view or else, if he can't convert it, tell it he'll be damned if he'll represent it any longer. That's the attitude I shall adopt in the House!..."

But Gilbert thought that this was a dangerous attitude to maintain.

"If you maintain it too long, you'll never get an office," he said, "and so the only work you'll be able to do will be critical work: you'll never get a chance to do anything constructive; and if you let the Government nobble you, and give you an Under Secretaryship the moment they see you getting dangerous, then you're done for. And anyhow, I don't believe in independent members of parliament. A certain number of sheep are necessary in every organisation, in parliament as much as anywhere else. It would be absolutely impossible to carry on Government if the whole six hundred and seventy members of parliament were as clever and as independent as Lord Hugh Cecil. You must have sheep and lots of 'em!..."

"But they needn't be dead sheep," said Roger. "They needn't be mutton, need they?"

"No, they needn't be mutton, but they must be sheep," Gilbert replied.

"All the politicians I've ever met," said Ninian, "were like New Zealand lamb ... frozen!"

Gilbert leaped on him and slapped his back, capsizing him on to the floor. "Ninian, my son," he said, "that's a good line. Do you mind if I put it in my comedy. It doesn't matter whether you do or not, but I'd like your consent."

"Don't be an old ass," said Ninian.

"Can I use that line about the New Zealand lamb?..."

"Yes, yes ... any damn thing ... only get off my chest! You're ... you're squeezing the inside out of me. Get up, will you!..."

"I'm really quite comfortable, thanks, Ninian. If it weren't for this whacking big bone here!..."

He did not complete the sentence, for Ninian, with a heaving effort, threw him on to the floor, where they scrambled and punched each other....

"There is a fine of eighteenpence," said Roger, "for disorderly conduct. I'll just enter it against you both!"

The combatants rose and routed Roger, and when they had disposed of him, Ninian agreed to let Gilbert use his line about the frozen meat. "I shall expect you to put a note in the programme that the epigram in the second act was supplied by Mr. Ninian Graham," he said.

"_The_ epigram!" Gilbert exclaimed. "_The_ epigram!"

"Why, will there be any more?" said Ninian innocently.

Hostilities thereupon broke out again.

4

They sat up late that night talking of themselves and of England and public affairs. Roger was interested in Trade Unions, and he lamented the fact that the Tories had allowed an alliance to be formed between Labour and Liberalism. "Ask any workman you meet in the street whether he'd rather work for a Liberal or a Tory, and I bet you what you like, the chances are that he'll plump for the Tory. His experience is that the Tory's the better employer, and the reason why that's so is that the Liberal conducts his business on principles, whereas the Tory conducts his on instincts. In principle, the Liberal concedes most things to the workman, but in practice he doesn't: in principle, the Tory concedes nothing to the workman, but in practice he treats him decently. The workman knows that, but the fool goes and votes for the Liberal, and the fool of a Tory lets him!... You know," he went on, "this Trade Union movement has got on to wrong lines altogether. Their chief function seems to be to protect their members from ... well, from being cheated. That's what it comes to. I don't blame 'em. They've had to behave like that. I don't think any one can read Webb's 'Industrial Democracy' and 'The History of Trade Unionism' without feeling that, on the whole, employers have been rather caddish to workmen ... so I don't blame the Unions for making so much fuss about their rights. But I'd like to see them making as much fuss about the quality of the work done by their members. That's their real function. It isn't enough to keep up the standard of wages and of conditions of employment--they ought also to keep up the standard of work!"

This led them into a wrangle about the responsibility for the blame for this indifference to quality of work.

"I suppose," said Roger, "employers and employed are to blame. I think myself it's the result of a world tendency towards hustle ... to get the thing done as quickly as possible without regard to the quality of it. I suppose a modern contractor would break his heart if he were asked to spend his lifetime on _one_ cathedral ... but people were proud to do that in the Middle Ages. We'd build half a dozen cathedrals while a Middle Ages man was decorating a gargoyle!"

"Well, we have this comfort," said Ninian, "the modern builder's stuff won't last as long as Westminster Abbey!"

"I hate all this bleat about the Middle Ages," Gilbert exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you, Roger, talking like that fat papist, Belloc. One 'ud think to hear you talking that no one ever did shoddy work until the nineteenth century, but Christopher Wren let a lot of shoddy stuff into St. Paul's Cathedral. There were fraudulent contractors then, and jerry-builders, just as there are now, and there probably always will be people who give a bad return for their wages!..."

"That's why I want to see the Tory Party resuscitated," said Roger. "I want to limit the number of such people and to make every man feel that it's a gentlemanly thing to do your best, whatever your job is, and that payment has nothing whatever to do with the way you do your work!"

The whole industrial system would need re-shaping, the whole social system would need re-shaping, the Empire would need re-shaping.

"This craving for cheapness has cheapened nothing but life," said Roger, "and it brings incalculable trouble with it. I mean, a ha'penny saved now means pounds lost later. Oh, that's a platitude, I know, but we pay no heed to it. I've never been to America, but we know quite well that one of the most serious problems for the Americans is the negro problem. I heard a Rhodes scholar talking about it once. He simply foamed at the mouth. He hadn't any plan for it ... didn't seem to realise that a plan could be made ... and you know they've only got that problem through the greediness of their ancestors. Negroes aren't native to America. The planters wanted cheap labour and so they imported them ... and the end of that business is the Negro Problem!"

"And lynchings and a Civil War in between," Henry murmured. "That's the most hateful part of it ... the killing and the bitterness."

"Great Scott!" said Ninian, "think of all those Yankees killing each other so that niggers might wear spats and top hats and sing coon songs in the music halls!... Damn silly, I call it!"

"We've got to make people believe that it isn't what you get that matters, but what you do," Roger went on. "All this footling squabble between workmen and employers about a farthing an hour more or a farthing an hour less ... isn't decent ... it isn't gentlemanly. Oh, I know very well that the counter-jumper thinks it's very clever to trick a customer out of a ha'penny ... but it doesn't last, that kind of profit. We lost America because we behaved like cads to the colonists, and we'll lose everything if we continue to play the counter-jumper trick. It isn't very popular now to talk about gentlemen ... people sneer at the word ... but I'd rather die like a gentleman than live like a cad ... and that's the spirit I want to see restored to the Tory Party. It's awfully needed in England now!"

They began to lay plans for an Improved Tory Party that included an alliance with Labour and a closer confederation of the colonies, together with a definite understanding with America.

"And what about Ireland?" said Henry.

"Oh, of course, Ireland must have Home Rule and be treated like a colony. Nobody but a fool wants to treat it in any other way!" said Roger.

"There are an awful lot of fools in the world," Gilbert said.

"I know that," Roger retorted, "but need we trouble about them?"

"We've got to get a group of fellows together on much the same principle as the Fabian Society ... no one to be admitted unless he has brains and is willing to work without payment. _Look_ at the work that Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw and all those people did for Socialism _for nothing_, even paying for it out of their own pockets when they weren't over-flush ... my goodness, if we can only get people with that kind of spirit into our group, we'll mould the world! By the way, we ought to pinch some ideas from the Fabians! We could meet somewhere ... here, to begin with. And when we've got a group of fellows together with some notion of what we all want to do, we can start inviting eminent ones to talk to us ... and heckle the stuffing out of them!"

Gilbert was able to tell them a great deal about the origin of the Fabian Society ... for his father was one of the founders of it ... and he told them how the Society had invited Mr. Haldane to talk to them ... and of the way in which they had fallen on him in the discussion and left all his arguments in shreds when the meeting ended.... "If we can get Balfour or Asquith or some other Eminent Pot here," he said, "and simply argue hell's blazes out of him ... my Lordy God, that 'ud be great!"

"They're not likely to come," said Ninian.

"I don't know. Eminent Ones sometimes do the most unusual things!"

Ninian yawned and stretched his arms. "I move that this House be now adjourned!" he said.

But they ignored his sleepiness, and he would not move away from their company.

"Well, we've settled what our future is to be," said Gilbert.

"What is it to be?" Ninian interrupted, stifling another yawn.

"Weren't you listening? We're to be Improved Tories ... and we're to improve the Universe, so to speak. We've just settled it. All the Old Birds are to be hoofed out of office, and we're to take their places, and I thoroughly approve of that. In my opinion, any man who wants to occupy a place of authority after the age of sixty should be publicly and cruelly pole-axed. I can't stand old men ... they're so cowardly and so obstinate and so conceited!"

"The great thing," said Roger, "is to keep ourselves from sloppiness. We mustn't make fools of ourselves!"

"The principal way in which a man makes a fool of himself," Gilbert added, "is in connexion with the female species. Is that what you mean, Roger?" Roger nodded his head. "Pay attention to that, Ninian," Gilbert went on. "You have a weakness for females, I've noticed!"

Ninian, suddenly forgetting his fatigue, sat up in his seat. "I say, let's jaw about women," he said.

"No," Gilbert replied. "We won't ... not at this hour of the morning!" But, disregarding his decision, he went on, "My view of women is that we all make too much fuss about 'em! Either we damn them excessively or we praise them excessively. They're a cursed nuisance in literature. All the writers seem to think that man was made for woman or woman for man, and they write and write about sex and love as if there weren't other things in the world besides women!"

"I'd like to know what else we were made for?" Henry said.

"We were made to do our jobs," Roger answered. "I believe in what I may call the modified anchorite ... women are too emotional and get between a man and his work. Love is an excellent thing ... excellent ... but there are other things!..."

"What else is there?" Henry demanded almost crossly. He felt vaguely stirred by what was being said, vaguely antagonistic to it.

"Oh, lots of things," Roger answered. "Fighting for your place, moving multitudes to do your will ... oh, lots of things!"

Gilbert had read some of Henry's novel, and he now began to talk about it.

"You turn on the Slop-tap too often," he said. "Quinny, my son, you're a clever little chap, but you're frightfully sloppy. I've read a lot more of your novel...."

"Yes?" said Henry, nervously anxious to hear his criticism.

"Slop!" Gilbert continued. "Just slop, Quinny! Women aren't like lumps of dough that a baker punches into any shape he likes, and they aren't sticks of barley sugar...."

"No, they aren't," Roger interrupted. "Wait till you see my cousin Rachel...."

"Have you got a cousin, Roger? How damned odd!" said Gilbert.

"Yes. I must bring her round here one evening. She's not a bad female ... quite intelligent for her sex. Go on!"

"They're like us, Quinny!" Gilbert continued. "They're good in parts and bad in parts. That's the vital discovery of the twentieth century, and I've made it!..."

Henry had been eager to hear Gilbert's criticism of his novel, but this kind of talk irritated him, though he could not understand why it irritated him, and his irritation drove him to sneers.

"I suppose," he said, "you want to substitute Social Reform and Improved Toryism for Romance. Lordy God, man, do you want to put eugenics and blue-books in place of the love of woman?"

"You're getting cross, Quinny!..."

"No, I'm not!"

"Oh, yes, you are ... very cross ... and you know what the fine for it is. If you want my opinion, here it is. I _am_ prepared to accept eugenics and blue-books as a substitute for the love of women ... if they're interesting, of course. That's all I ask of any one or anything ... that it shall interest me. I don't care what it is, so long as it doesn't bore me. Women bore me ... women in books and plays, I mean ... because they're all of a pattern: lovebirds. I've never seen a play in which the women weren't used for sloppy emotional purposes. The minute I see a woman walking on to the stage, I say to myself, 'Here comes the Slop-tap!' and as sure as I'm alive, the author immediately turns the tap on and the woman is over ears and head in slop before we're two-thirds through the first act. And they're not like that in real life, any more than we are. We aren't continually making goo-goo eyes, nor are they. I'm going to write a play one of these days that will stagger the civilised world, I tell you! It'll be bung full of women but it won't have a word of slop from beginning to end!..."

"It'll be a failure," said Ninian.

"Oh, from the box-office point of view, no doubt!..."

"No, from the common sense point of view. I'm on the side of Quinny in this matter, and I'm as much of an authority on women as you are, Gilbert. I've loved three different barmaids and a young woman in a tobacconist's shop, and I say, what the hell is the good of talking all this rubbish about men and women trotting round as if male and female He had not created them. When I see a woman, if she's got any femininity about her at all, I want to hug her and kiss her, and I do so, if I can, and so does any man if he is a man. I belong to the masculine gender and she belongs to the feminine ... and that's all there's to be said about it. If we were neuters, we'd be characters in your play, Gilbert...."

"I don't want to kiss every girl I meet," said Gilbert.

They howled at him in derision. "Oh, you liar!" said Henry, forgetting his anger.

"You hug women all day long, you Mormon!" Ninian roared, "or you would if they'd let you!"

"That's why you react so strongly from love in your plays," Roger said judicially. "You can't leave them alone in real life...."

"I don't mean to say I haven't kissed a girl or two," Gilbert admitted.

"_A girl or two!_ Listen to him!" Ninian went on. "Oh, listen to the innocent babe and suckling. A girl or two! Look here, let's make a census of 'em. What was the name of that girl whose brother got sent down? Lady Something?..."

"Lady Cecily!..."

"Shut up!" Gilbert shouted at them, and his voice was full of rage. He stood over them, glaring at them fiercely....

"I say, Gilbert!" said Henry, "what's up?"

He recovered himself. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to lose my temper!"

"That's all right, Gilbert," Ninian murmured. "It was my fault. I oughtn't to have rotted you like that!"

"It doesn't matter," Gilbert answered.

5

They were silent for a while, disconcerted by Gilbert's strange outburst of anger, and for a few moments it seemed as if their argument must end now. Ninian began to yawn again, and he was about to propose once more that they should go to bed, when Gilbert resumed the discussion.

"You make no allowance for reticence," he said to Henry. "That's what Roger really wants in politics ... reticence!"

"In everything," Roger exclaimed

"I know," Gilbert went on. "When I first went in to the _Daily Echo_ office, I saw a notice in the sub-editor's room which tickled me to death. Elsden, the night editor, had put it up, and it said that the word 'gutted' was not to be used in describing the state of a house after a fire. I went to Elsden ... I like him better than any one else in the _Echo_ office ... and asked him what was the matter with the word. 'Well, my dear chap,' he said, 'think of guts! I mean to say, _Guts_! Hang it all, we must cover up something!' I thought he was being rather old-maidish then, but I'm not sure now that Elsden's point of view hasn't got something behind it. He just wanted to be decently quiet about things that aren't pretty! I don't think it's necessary to blurt out everything, and I'm certain that if you keep on washing your dirty linen in public, people will end up by thinking you've got nothing else but dirty linen. Your characters," he added, turning to Henry, "go about, splashing in their emotions as if they were trick swimmers or ... or damn little journalists. I tell you, Quinny, love's a private, furtive thing, a secret adventure, and open exposure of it is a sort of profanity...."

"No," said Henry emphatically. "Love's made nasty by secrecy!" He began to spread himself. He had been reading some of the authors of the Yellow Book period. "It seems to me," he said, "that the marriage rite is broken, incomplete. In a healthy state, the whole function would be performed in public ... in ... in a cathedral, say. There'd be a procession of priests in golden chasubles, and acolytes swinging carved censers, and boys with banners, and hidden choirs chanting long litanies...."

"I shall be sick in a minute!" said Gilbert. "You're talking like an over-ripe Oscar Wilde, Quinny, and if you were really that sort of animal I'd have you hoofed out of this. Get out the whisky, Ninian, for the love of the Lordy God! This æsthetic stuff makes my inside wobble!"

Ninian went to the sideboard and took hold of the whisky bottle. "I don't much like that sort of talk myself," he said. "It's too clever-clever for my taste. I shouldn't let it grow on me, Quinny, if I were you. You'll get a reputation like bad eggs, and people'll think you've strayed out of your period and got lost. As a matter of fact, Gilbert, you don't really want whisky, and you're only going to drink it for effect, so you shan't have any!"

He returned to his seat, as he spoke, and sat down. Henry had a quick sense of shame. He had spoken insincerely, for effect ... in order to impress them with his cleverness, and their answer to him filled him with a sense of inferiority. He felt that they must despise him, and feeling that, he began to despise himself.

"My own feeling about these things," said Ninian, "is perfectly simple. I believe in lust. I'm a lustful man myself, and so, I believe, is Roger!..."

"No, I'm not," Roger exclaimed.

"Well, I am," Ninian proceeded. "Lust is the motor force of the world...."

"No, it isn't," Gilbert interrupted. "The whole of civilisation depends upon the human stomach. If men would live without eating ... the whole of this society would dissolve. Lust is subordinate to the stomach, Ninian. You've never seen a starving man in a purple passion, have you?"

Ninian leant forward and tapped the table with his knuckles. "I say that lust is the motor force of the world," he said, "and I think you might let me finish my sentences, Gilbert. You are so eager to vent your own views that you won't let any one else vent his...."

"What's the good of venting your views if they're wrong, damn it!" said Gilbert.

"Well, let me finish venting 'em anyhow. Assuming that I'm right, I say you should treat lust exactly as you treat the circulation of your blood: don't fuss about it. It's a natural function, neither beautiful nor ugly. It's just there, and that's all about it. The fellow who dithers about it as if he'd invented a new philosophy on the day he first slept with a woman, is a dirty, neurotic ass. So is the fellow who pretends that there's no such thing as sex in the world. Male and female created He them, and I can tell you, He jolly well knew what He was up to!"

Roger flicked the ash from his cigarette and coughed slightly.

"I think," he said, "we talk too much about these things. They pass the time, of course, but not very profitably. Whatever the Universal Motive may be ... I'm talking, of course, without prejudice ... it'll express itself in complete disregard of our feelings and views. I have had no experience of women otherwise than in the capacity of a mother, several aunts, a nurse, a number of cousins, and also some waitresses in restaurants...."

"Roger's never kissed a woman in a sexual sense in his life," Gilbert interrupted.

"I have never seen the necessity of it," Roger said.

"But aren't you curious to know what it's like? After all, it's a form of experience," Henry asked, looking at Roger with curiosity.

"Having scarlet fever is a form of experience, but I don't wish to know what it's like," Roger answered.

"My God, you are a prig, Roger!" said Gilbert simply.

"I know that," Roger answered. "That's why I don't get on with women. They find me out. No," he continued, "I've no experience of women in that way. I daresay I shall get experience some day, but in the meantime, I've got my job to do...."

"We shall have a virgin Lord Chancellor on the woolsack," said Gilbert, "and then may God have mercy on all poor litigants!"

"We really ought to go to bed," Ninian protested.

"Not yet," Henry exclaimed.

He had recovered from his feeling of dejection, and he was eager to retrieve the good opinion which he thought he had lost.

"My own view," he said, beginning as they always began their oracular pronouncements, "my own view is that we make the mistake of thinking in masses instead of in individuals. Everybody who tries to reform the world, tries to make it uniform, but what we want is the most complete diversity that's obtainable. It's the variations from type that make type bearable!..."

"That's a good phrase, Quinny. Where'd you get it from?" Gilbert interrupted.

Henry flushed with pleasure. "I made it up," he answered. "All men are different," he went on, "and therefore the morals that suit one person are unlikely to suit another person. Roger doesn't bother about women. He looks upon them as a ... a sideline. Don't you, Roger? He'll marry in due course, and he'll have one woman, and he'll have her all to himself. Won't you, Roger?"

"Probably," Roger replied, "but there's no certainty about these things."

Henry proceeded. "Gilbert wants lots and lots of women, but he doesn't want to talk about it, and he wants to keep his women and his work separate ... in watertight compartments, as it were. As if you could do that! And Ninian wants to have a good old hearty coarse time like ... like Tom Jones ... and then he'll repent and praise God and lay his stick about the backsides of all the young sinners he meets!"

"No, I don't, ..." said Ninian, but Henry, having started, would not let himself be interrupted. "I want to have lots and lots of women," he went on hurriedly, "but I don't care who knows about them. I like talking about my love-affairs...."

"Well, why don't you talk about 'em?" Gilbert demanded.

Henry was nonplussed. His speech became hesitant. "I ... I said I'd like to talk about them," he replied. "I didn't say I would do so...." He hurried away from the subject. "But chiefly," he said, "I don't want anything permanent in my life. Now, do you understand? Roger's like the Rock of Ages ... the same yesterday, to-day and forever, but I want to be different to-morrow from what I am to-day, and different again the day after. Endless variety for me!"

"It'll be an awful lot of trouble," said Gilbert.

"That doesn't matter. Now my argument is that I have a different nature from Roger and all of you, but I'm not a worse man than any of you are...."

"No, no, of course not," they asserted.

"I'm just different, that's all. The man who loves one woman and cleaves to her until death do them part isn't a better man or a worse man than the chap who loves a different woman every year, and doesn't cleave to any of them. He's just different. You see," he continued, pleased with the way he was enunciating his opinions, "we are of all sorts. There are lustful men and there are men who have scarcely any sex impulse at all, and there are coarse men and refined men, and ... and all sorts of men, and they're all necessary to the world. I say, why not recognise the differences between them and leave it at that! It's silly to try and fit us all with the same system of morals when nobody but a fool would try to fit us all with the same size hat!"

"You don't make any allowance for the views of women," Roger said.

"Oh, yes, I do," Henry retorted quickly. "There is as much variety among women as there is among men. Some of them are monogamous and some aren't. That's all!"

Gilbert stretched his legs out in front of him and then drew them back again. "Our little Quinny's got this world neatly parcelled out," he said. "Hasn't he, coves? There he sits, like a little Jehovah, handing out natures as if they were school-prizes. 'Here, my little lad, here's your set of morals. Now, run away and make a hog of yourself with the women!' 'Here, my little lad, here's your set of morals. Now, run away and be a bally monk!'"

"Exactly!" said Henry. "That's my view!"

"Well, all I can say," said Ninian, "is that it won't do. This may be a tom-fool sort of a world, but it gets along in its tom-fool way a lot better than it will in your neat arrangement of things...."

"Besides," Roger said, taking up the argument from Ninian, "there is a common measure in life. Oh, I know quite well that there are differences between man and man, but there are resemblances, too, and what we've got to do ... the Improved Tories, I mean ... is to discover which is the more important, the resemblances of men or the differences of men. As a lawyer, of course, I only know what's in my brief, but as a man, I'm interested!"

"The question is," said Gilbert, "are women a damned nuisance that ought to be put down, or are they not? I say they are, but I like 'em all the same, and that only shows what a blasted hole I'm in. I like kissing them ... it's no good pretending that I don't...."

"Not a bit," said Ninian.

"And I kiss 'em whenever I get a chance," Gilbert continued, "but all the same I'd like to be a whopping big icicle so as to be able to ignore 'em ... like Roger!"

Ninian got up, resolved on going to bed. "Come on," he said, stretching himself. "Our jaw about women doesn't appear to have solved anything!"

"It never will," Roger answered, rising too. "We shall still be jawing about them this day twelvemonth...."

"D.V.," said Gilbert.

"But we won't get any forrarder!"

"Rum things, women!" said Ninian, moving towards the door, "but very nice ... very nice, indeed!"

"My goodness me, I am tired," Gilbert yawned. "Oh, so tired! But we've settled everything, haven't we? The empire and women and so on? Great Scott," he exclaimed, "we forgot to say anything about God!"

"So we did," said Ninian, and he turned back from the door.

"The Improved Tories really ought to make up their minds about religion," Gilbert went on.

"Can't we leave that until to-morrow?" Roger complained. "We needn't talk about Him to-night, need we? I'm frightfully sleepy!..."

6

While Henry was undressing, he remembered how angry Gilbert had been with Ninian and Roger because they had mentioned the name of a girl for whom he had cared.

"Awfully rum, that!" he said to himself, sitting on the edge of his bed.

He tried to recall her name. "Lady something!" he said, and then said several times, "Lady ... Lady ... Lady!..." in the hope that the name would follow. But he could not remember it.

"Odd that I never heard of her before."

He put on his dressing-gown, and opened the door of his room. "I'll ask old Ninian," he said, as he went out.

Ninian, who had been yawning so heavily downstairs, was now sitting up in bed, reading a copy of the _Engineer_.

"Hilloa," he exclaimed as Henry entered the room in response to his "Come in!"

"I say, Ninian, what was the name of the girl that Gilbert was so gone on at Cambridge? Lady something or other! He was rather sick with you for mentioning her...."

"Oh, Lady Cecily Jayne!"

"Is that her name? Who is she?"

"Society female," said Ninian. "Takes an interest in literature and art in her spare time, but she doesn't know anything about either of them. Her brother was in our college until he got sent down. That was how Gilbert met her. She came up one May week and made eyes at Gilbert. She wasn't married then!..."

"Is she married?" Henry interrupted.

"Oh, yes. She used to be Lady Cecily Blandgate ... her father's the Earl of Bucklersbury. She's a big female...."

"What do you mean? Fat?"

"No. Tall," said Ninian.

"Is she good-looking?"

"Yes, she is, and rather amusing, too, in a footling sort of way. She's got a fearful appetite, and she thinks of herself all day long. I know because she damn near ruined me over cream buns once."

"I suppose Gilbert was in love with her?..."

"I suppose so. He didn't tell me and I didn't ask, but he mooned about with her and looked awfully sloppy when he passed her things. You know what I mean. He'd hand her a plate of bread and butter, and look at her as much as to say, 'This is really my heart I'm handing you!' I never saw a chap look such an ass!"

"Has she been married very long?"

"Oh, a year or two. I don't know. I'm not very interested in her. Too much of a female for my taste. Extremely entertaining in the evening and the afternoon, but awfully boring in the morning!..."

"Sounds like sour grapes, Ninian!"

"Oh, I've been in love with her if that's what you mean. We all were, even old Roger. In fact, I kissed her once ... or was it twice? She's the sort of woman a chap does kiss somehow. I couldn't think of anything else to do when I was with her. That's why she's so dull. She splashes her sex about as if she were distributing handbills. I'm surprised that you don't know her. She's a very well-known female...."

"I've been in Ireland, Ninian...."

"So you have. I'd forgotten that. Of course, if you will live in a place like that, you can't expect to be familiar with the wonders of civilisation. Ever see the _Daily Reflexion_?"

"Oh, yes, we get that in Ireland all right!"

"Do you, indeed! Well, praise God from Whom all blessings flow. If you buy a copy of to-morrow's _Daily Reflexion_, you'll probably see her photograph in it, or a paragraph about her. Roger says people pay to have themselves mentioned once a month in that sort of rag!"

"What's her husband like?" Henry asked.

"God made him, but nobody knows why. I believe chorus girls call him 'Chummie.' That's his purpose in life. I say, Henry, there's a ripping sketch of a new kind of engine in this paper. I wish you'd let me explain it to you...."

"Who is her husband?" said Henry.

"Who is who's husband?"

"Lady Cecily Jayne's!..."

"Lordy God, man, you're not talking about her still, are you? Her husband is ... let me see ... oh, yes, he's Lord Jasper Jayne. His name sounds like the hero of a servant's novelette, but he doesn't look like that. He looks like a chucker-out in a back-street pub. His father's the Marquis of Dulbury. He's the second son. The eldest is sillier, but it's all been hushed up. Anything else you want to know?"

"I'm just interested, that's all!"

"Her brother ... I told you, didn't I? ... was at Cambridge with us. He came down a year before we did. As a matter of fact, he was sent down and told to stay down. He ducked a proctor in a water-butt and the dons were very cross about it. He's not a bad fellow. I think we'll ask him round here one evening. Lady Cecily's very fond of him ... she used to come up to Cambridge to see him ... before the affair with the proctor, of course ... and Gilbert and I took her and another female out in a punt once!"

Henry, who had been sitting in an arm-chair while Ninian told him about Lady Cecily Jayne, got up and walked across the room.

"Gilbert was very upset when you mentioned her name," he said. "I suppose her marriage was a blow to him?"

"Oh, I don't know. Look here, Quinny, if you're going to jaw any more about this female, you can just hop off to your own room, but if you'd like to hear me explaining these diagrams to you, you can stay...."

"Do you ever see Lady Cecily now?" Henry asked, ignoring what Ninian had said.

"Now and again. Gilbert sees her quite often...."

"Does he?" Henry said eagerly.

"Yes. At first nights. She goes to the theatre a lot. Do you want to meet her?"

There was some confusion in Henry's voice as he answered, "I should like to meet her. You see, I've never known a really beautiful woman...."

"Aren't there any in Ireland?"

"Oh, yes. Plenty. Peasant girls, particularly!" He thought for a moment or two of Sheila Morgan, and then hurriedly went on. "But I've never known a really beautiful woman. You see, Ninian, ours is a fairly lonely sort of house, and I've spent most of my time either there or at T.C.D. or at Rumpell's, and somehow I've never got to know any one...."

"Well, you'd better ask Gilbert to take you with him to a first-night. She's sure to be there, and you can ask him to introduce you to her. And now, you can hoof out, young fellow!..."

Henry went back to his own room and got into bed, but he did not sleep until the dawn began to break. His thoughts wandered vaguely about his mind, bumping up against one recollection and then against another. He remembered Sheila Morgan and the bright look in her eyes that evening when she had hurriedly come into the Language class out of the rain ... and while he was remembering Sheila, he found himself thinking of Mary Graham and the way in which she would put up her hand and throw her long hair from her shoulders. Then came memories of Bridget Fallon ... and almost mechanically he began to murmur a prayer to the Virgin. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!..."

He turned over on his side, pulling the bedclothes more closely about him. "Cecily Jayne," he murmured in a sleepy voice. "What a pretty name, that is!"

THE FOURTH CHAPTER

1

Their days were spent in work. Ninian and Roger left the house soon after nine o'clock, Ninian to go to the office of his engineering firm in Victoria Street, Roger to go to his chambers in the Temple, leaving Henry and Gilbert to work at home. In the evening, provided that there was not a "first-night" to call Gilbert to the theatre, they talked of themselves and of their future. Their egotism was undisguised. They had set their minds on a high destiny and were certain that they would achieve it, so they did not waste any energy, as Gilbert once said, in pretending that they were not remarkably able. In a short time, they gathered a group of friends about them who were, they thought, likely to work well and ably, and it became the custom for their friends to visit them on Thursday evening. Gilbert began the custom of asking some one to dine with them on Thursday, and the guest was expected to account for himself to the group that assembled after dinner. The Improved Tories, according to Gilbert, wanted heart-to-heart talks from people of experience. If a guest treated them to flummery, they let him know that they despised his flummery and insisted on asking him questions of a peculiarly intimate character. There were less than a dozen people in the group, apart from Roger and Ninian and Gilbert and Henry, but each of them had distinguished himself in some fashion at his college. Hilary Cornwall had taken so many prizes and scholarships that he had lost count of them, and when he entered the Colonial Office, it became a commonplace to say of him that he was destined to become Permanent Under-Secretary at a remarkably youthful age. Gerald Luke had produced two little books of poetry of such quality that people believed that he was in the line of great tradition. Ernest Carr had edited Granta so ably that he was invited to join the staff of the _Times_. Then there were Ashley Earls, who had had a play produced by the Stage Society, and Peter Crooks, the chemist, and Edward Allen, who was private secretary to a Cabinet Minister, and Goeffrey Grant, another journalist, and Clifford Dartrey, who spent his time in research work and had already produced a book on Casual Labour in the Building Trades in return for the Shaw Prize at the London School of Economics.

They called themselves the Improved Tories, although most of them would have voted at an election for any one but a Conservative candidate. Ashley Earls and Gerald Luke were Socialists and had only consented to join the group because they were told that the purpose of it was less political than sociological.

"You see," Gilbert said to them, "it isn't good for England to have a Tory Party so dense as this one is, and you'll really be doing useful work if you help to improve their quality. What is the good of an Opposition which can do nothing but oppose? Look at that fellow, Sir Frederick Banbury! What in the name of God is the good of a man like that? He doesn't make anything ... he just gets in the way. Of course, that's useful ... but he doesn't know when to get out of the way ... which is much more useful. And there ought to be people who aren't content either to get in the way or just get out of it ... there ought to be people who can shove things along. But there aren't ... except Balfour, and he's getting old and anyhow he hasn't got much health. You see what I mean, don't you? There ought to be a strong Opposition, otherwise the Liberals will develop fatty degeneration of the political sense.... The trouble with a lot of these fellows is that they believe that twaddle that Lord Randolph Churchill talked about the duty of an Opposition being to oppose. Of course it isn't. The duty of the Opposition is to criticise and to improve, if they can...."

And so Ashley Earls and Gerald Luke joined the group of Improved Tories, not as members, but as critics. It was they who induced the others to join the Fabian Society. "You can become subscribers ... that won't commit you to anything ... and then you'll be able to attend all the meetings and get all the publications. It'll be good for you!..."

The supply of political guests was not of the quality they desired. The eminent politicians were either too busy or too scornful to accept their invitations. F. E. Robinson was impertinent to them until he heard that Mr. Balfour was interested in their proceedings ... had even asked to be introduced to Roger Carey ... and then he offered to address them on Young Toryism, but they told him that they did not now wish to hear him. They had taken Robinson's measure very quickly. "Police-court lawyer!" they said, and ceased to trouble about him. Mr. Balfour never attended the group, but they consoled themselves to some extent by reading his book on Decadence and arguing about it among themselves. If, however, they were not able to secure many of the Eminent Ones, they were able to secure plenty of the Semi-Eminent, far more than they wanted, and for half a year, they listened to politicians of all sorts, Old Tories and Young Tories, Liberal Imperialists and Radicals, Fabian Socialists and Social Democrats, heckling them and being heckled by them. At the end of that six months, Gilbert revolted against politicians.

"These aren't the people who really matter," he said. "They don't start things. We want to get hold of the people with new ideas ... the men who begin movements and the men who aren't always wondering what their constituents will say if they hear about it!"