第13章

My wife was at Kissengen, and I was dining with the Caerlaverocks en garcon.When I have not to wait upon the adornment of the female person I am a man of punctual habits, and I reached the house as the hall clock chimed the quarter-past.My poor friend, Tommy Deloraine, arrived along with me, and we ascended the staircase together.I call him "my poor friend," for at the moment Tommy was under the weather.He had the misfortune to be a marquis, and a very rich one, and at the same time to be in love with Claudia Barriton.Neither circumstance was in itself an evil, but the combination made for tragedy.For Tommy's twenty-five years of healthy manhood, his cleanly-made up-standing figure, his fresh countenance and cheerful laugh, were of no avail in the lady's eyes when set against the fact that he was an idle peer.Miss Claudia was a charming girl, with a notable bee in her bonnet.She was burdened with the cares of the State, and had no patience with any one who took them lightly.To her mind the social fabric was rotten beyond repair, and her purpose was frankly destructive.I remember some of her phrases: "A bold and generous policy of social amelioration";"The development of a civic conscience"; "A strong hand to lop off decaying branches from the trunk of the State." I have no fault to find with her creed, but I objected to its practical working when it took the shape of an inhuman hostility to that devout lover, Tommy Deloraine.She had refused him, I believe, three times, with every circumstance of scorn.The first time she had analysed his character, and described him as a bundle of attractive weaknesses."The only forces I recognise are those of intellect and conscience," she had said, "and you have neither."The second time--it was after he had been to Canada on the staff--she spoke of the irreconcilability of their political ideals."You are an Imperialist," she said, "and believe in an empire of conquest for the benefit of the few.I want a little island with a rich life for all." Tommy declared that he would become a Doukhobor to please her, but she said something about the inability of Ethiopians to change their skin.The third time she hinted vaguely that there was "another." The star of Abinger Vennard was now blazing in the firmament, and she had conceived a platonic admiration for him.The truth is that Miss Claudia, with all her cleverness, was very young and--dare I say it?

--rather silly.

Caerlaverock was stroking his beard, his legs astraddle on the hearthrug, with something appallingly viceregal in his air, when Mr.and Mrs.Alexander Cargill were announced.The Home Secretary was a joy to behold.He had the face of an elderly and pious bookmaker, and a voice in which lurked the indescribable Scotch quality of "unction." When he was talking you had only to shut your eyes to imagine yourself in some lowland kirk on a hot Sabbath morning.He had been a distinguished advocate before he left the law for politics, and had swayed juries of his countrymen at his will.The man was extraordinarily efficient on a platform.There were unplumbed depths of emotion in his eye, a juicy sentiment in his voice, an overpowering tenderness in his manner, which gave to politics the glamour of a revival meeting.

He wallowed in obvious pathos, and his hearers, often unwillingly, wallowed with him.I have never listened to any orator at once so offensive and so horribly effective.There was no appeal too base for him, and none too august: by some subtle alchemy he blended the arts of the prophet and the fishwife.He had discovered a new kind of language.Instead of "the hungry millions," or "the toilers," or any of the numerous synonyms for our masters, he invented the phrase, "Goad's people." "I shall never rest," so ran his great declaration, "till Goad's green fields and Goad's clear waters are free to Goad's people." Iremember how on this occasion he pressed my hand with his famous cordiality, looked gravely and earnestly into my face, and then gazed sternly into vacancy.It was a fine picture of genius descending for a moment from its hill-top to show how close it was to poor humanity.

Then came Lord Mulross, a respectable troglodytic peer, who represented the one sluggish element in a swiftly progressing Government.He was an oldish man with bushy whiskers and a reputed mastery of the French tongue.A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's councils, and endured by the Cabinet as necessary ballast.He did not conceal his dislike for certain of his colleagues, notably Mr.Vennard and Mr.Cargill.

When Miss Barriton arrived with her stepmother the party was almost complete.She entered with an air of apologising for her prettiness.Her manner with old men was delightful, and Iwatched with interest the unbending of Caerlaverock and the simplifying of Mr.Cargill in her presence.Deloraine, who was talking feverishly to Mrs.Cargill, started as if to go and greet her, thought better of it, and continued his conversation.The lady swept the room with her eye, but did not acknowledge his presence.She floated off with Mr.Cargill to a window-corner, and metaphorically sat at his feet.I saw Deloraine saying things behind his moustache, while he listened to Mrs.Cargill's new cure for dyspepsia.