Chapter V

1

The world which Ivor then touched and tasted so carelessly was a vastly different world from that with which he was surrounded, in his fuller maturity, on the 1st May, 1921, at the Mont Agel. More than war had intervened between that past and this present: some people said that an undue stress of evolution had intervened; and other people said that the very opposite of evolution had frightfully intervened. But no one really knew anything about it, not even Mr. Britling. There was, it was plain, a self-consciousness abroad after the war that had not been before; and, too, a certain sophistication about things that once used to move us exceedingly. There was nothing remarkable in the fact that, with the war and after it, everything was become bigger, even tennis-tournaments, strikes, prizefights, revolutions, and Cabinets--but it _was_ rather remarkable that men seemed to have become much smaller. Maybe, it was suggested, men seemed to have become smaller--in significance, say--because they were now conscious of their relation to the huge and cruel mechanism of the universe. Death had lost something of its terror, and life had gained it. Life had lost something of its value, but death had not gained it--despite all the pomps of honour and medalry with which the survivors had belauded it. And if there had still been a Pythian priestess, and if there had still been any one who believed in priests to ask of her an oracle, she might well have answered even as she answered anent the fortunes of a battle in the days of Greece’s decline: “Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.” But, failing a Pythian oracle, there was Mr. Shaw, who in 1919 very sharply pointed out that “the earth is bursting with the dead bodies of the victors.” ... A very precocious century, this, for it was old and tired and _blasé_ by its twenty-first birthday; a senile and fumbling century it was on its twenty-first birthday, that which had been so gay, so careless, so essentially _new_, but ten or eleven years before! _New_....

In the world, when Ivor first entered it and it blooded him, there was abroad a new generation, newer than any generation had ever been before; and in all things, even beauty, singularly distinguished. Whereupon the old, instead of growing older in decent contrast, grew young again in a fury of contemplation. And meanwhile earthquakes shook the social fabric, but who cared? Hadn’t earthquakes always shaken the social fabric, and wasn’t the thing called “the social fabric” just so that earthquakes could shake it? Doctors and other professional men took to asking, with twinkles in their eyes: “What would happen if _we_ went on strike?” They asked that every day, with twinkles in their eyes, but no one among them ever dreamed of answering. The answer was a lemon.

And in the meanwhile, Society shivered a little feverishly, filled now with the scions of those who had come over with the Jewish and American Conquests. Escutcheons were becoming valueless, how sinister soever the blots and clots upon them. And so, among the many Movements of the day--Movements to Clothe Poor Children beautifully, Movements to bring Sanity into Art, Movements to call the U.S.A. the Y.M.C.A.--there was brought to birth a Movement of Laughter among industrial classes at fine ladies and fine gentlemen, a Movement of Ridicule among artisans at aristocrats who were not now aristocratic enough whatever they may once have been.[A]

Every one was very serious, at that distant time, but very careless about other people’s seriousness. That is the difference between peace and war.

And, throughout those days, Ivor Pelham Marlay loitered prodigiously. He was careless with his money and concerned about his person, which had now acquired those elegant lines peculiar to affected young men who deliberately owe for their clothes. He was absent-minded at the right moments. He was a very pretty lover, especially over dinner: after dinner he would generally suggest dancing. He was audacious at conventional moments and conventional at adventurous moments. He had cheek, money, and moments of sincerity. He was apt at a misquotation, which is, of course, the only amusing part of a quotation. And he had a sudden smile which made one rather like him just when one had decided he was an unbearable young cub: he was, in fact, quite unbearable, even to himself; and exactly ripe, at the age of three-and-twenty, to be brought sharply to his senses. Magdalen Gray was very good at bringing men to their senses; but she used her own to do it with.

Magdalen Gray occurred suddenly: like a symbol with a lovely face, suddenly shaped out to his startled eyes from the shoddy stuff of his life. And the glimmer waxed into a great light....