Some days later Lord Spratte found himself dressed half-an-hour too
early for the dinner-party to which he was going. He made up his mind to
walk down Piccadilly. The evening was delightful, and he looked with
amiable eyes upon the populous street. The closing day flooded the scene
with gold that seemed flung from divine hands with a gesture large and
free. The crowd, sweeping along the pavements, the gay ’buses and the
carriages, were bathed in opulent splendour. They looked like magic
things, all light and movement, seen by a painter who could work
miracles. Lord Spratte congratulated himself that his fellow-men were
all very well-to-do and had obviously no concern with sordid details. He
braced himself to enjoy the charming world in general, and the festivity
before him in particular.
“I’m feelin’ younger every day,” he murmured. “By Jupiter, if Theodore
don’t mind his p’s and q’s I’ll marry and do him out of the title yet.”
So may the fancy of middle age in June turn lightly to amorous
undertakings.
Suddenly he recognized Bertram Railing, who was walking quickly towards
him. They met, and the Socialist, seeing him for the first time,
flushed; then he fixed his eyes firmly on Lord Spratte and with much
deliberation cut him. The elder man smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
He wanted to speak with Bertram, and was entirely indifferent to his
obvious disinclination. He turned round and with some trouble caught him
up.
“Why the dickens do you walk at that rate?” he panted, somewhat out of
breath.
He took Bertram’s arm familiarly. But the young man stopped and abruptly
released himself.
“What do you want?”
“Merely to have a little chat. Let us stroll in the Park for five
minutes.”
“I’m sorry, that’s impossible. I have an urgent engagement.”
“Nonsense!”
Lord Spratte again seized the unwilling arm, and in the most determined
way made for the Park gates.
“I want to talk to you about your engagement with Winnie. I’m afraid
you’ve been very unhappy.”
Bertram did not answer, but with firm-set jaws looked straight in front
of him.
“You know, if I were you I would try not to take it too much to heart,”
he went on. “In a little while you’ll understand that both you and
Winnie would have been quite unnecessarily wretched.”
He paused and looked at Bertram sharply.
“Will you promise not to turn round and bolt if I stop to light a
cigarette?”
“Yes,” said Bertram, smiling in spite of himself.
“You think she’s a very remarkable young woman, but she’s quite an
average girl. Perhaps she’s a little prettier than most. I know very few
young women of her particular station who wouldn’t have acted as she
has.”
“Then Heaven help her particular station,” cried Bertram.
“I don’t suppose it’s struck you that it’s a very awkward one,” replied
Lord Spratte, mildly. “A great family might have lived down a match of
this sort, (I don’t want to hurt your feelings,) but we’re such very
small fry. You think us snobs, and so we are. You can’t expect anythin’
else from people who’ve only just emerged from the middle-classes. You
know, I have an impression that your grandfather and mine were great
pals. I’m sure they used to hobnob and drink brandy and water together
in seedy public-houses. Do you remember the Egyptian usurper who made a
wine-cup into the image of a god, for the edification of his former
boon-fellows? Well, we’re somethin’ like that astute monarch; we have to
use all sorts of stratagems to persuade the world of our gentility. If
this affair between you and Winnie had come to anything, do you know
what she would have done? She would have tried all her life to live up
to Mayfair, and it would have meant either that you were dragged away
from your proper work, or that she would have been eternally
dissatisfied. My dear boy, she would have reproached you every day for
marrying her.”
He stopped, feeling that the words were not coming as he wished. He
wanted to be kind, and there were a few useful things he thought Bertram
ought to know. But he could not properly order what was in his mind.
Bertram felt the intention and presently answered less bitterly:
“Why do you take the trouble to say all this?”
“I wish I had my brother Theodore’s eloquence. He’d say what I want to
in the most beautiful language. He’s not a bad chap, although you
probably don’t set much store on him. He’s so fortunate as to feel
himself a person of importance; I don’t. I always wish I’d been the son
of nobody in particular. It bores me to death to go about under the
shadow of my father’s name. I can’t think why it is, but I go through
life feeling as if I were perpetually wearin’ fancy-dress. I haven’t
read your book. I believe it’s very instructive, and at my time of life
I avoid instruction. But when Winnie said she was going to marry you, I
went one day to hear you speak at a meetin’ in Holborn. I was never so
surprised in my life.”
“Why?”
“I discovered that you were sincere. By Jupiter, how you would have
bored Winnie if things had gone on much longer! Most of those worthy
folk who advocate reform and lord knows what, have their own axes to
grind. My brother Theodore, for instance, wants a bishopric, others want
a seat in the Cabinet or a sinecure. Even now I believe there are some
who want a peerage, though for the life of me I can’t see what good they
think it’ll do them.”
Lord Spratte laughed a little and threw away his cigarette.
“They make a great fuss about redressin’ the people’s wrongs, but in
their heart of hearts I believe they’re precious indifferent to them.
They want the power which they can cozen out of the mob, or they think
the Government will stop their mouths with a fat billet. At first I had
an idea you were an impostor like the rest of them, but when you stood
up on your hind legs I found out you were nothin’ of the kind. You were
the only speaker among all those M.P.’s and clerics and millionaires who
seemed to mean a word you said. Your speech was quite out of the
picture, but it was interesting. Personally I loathe democracy and
socialism and all the rest of it, but honest conviction amuses me. To
see it on a platform is quite a new sensation.”
It made Lord Spratte uncommonly nervous to play the heavy father, and he
feared that he was very ridiculous. He waited for Bertram to make an
observation.
“I want to do something for my fellows in the few years of my life,”
said the other, at last.
“You’ll find they’re much better left alone, and your reward will
probably be the most virulent abuse. The human race loves a martyr; it
will crucify a man with the greatest zest in order to have another God
to worship as soon as the breath is out of his body.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” smiled Railing.
“Then in Heaven’s name don’t hamper yourself by marriage. If you marry
out of your own station you’ll be nobbled. My boy, before you’d been
Winnie’s husband twelve months they’d have set you up as a Tory Member
of Parliament. On the other hand, if you marry a pauper, you’ll have to
think of all sorts of shifts to earn bread. You’ll have to hold your
tongue when you ought to speak, because you daren’t risk your means of
livelihood.”
“I loved Winnie with all my heart and soul.”
“I daresay, but you’ll get over it. One thinks one’s heart is broken and
the world is suddenly hollow and empty, but a disappointment in love is
like an attack of the gout. It’s the very devil while it lasts, but one
feels all the better for it afterwards. My dear fellow, I was jilted
once. I loved a lady in the Gaiety chorus, and I loved her dearly. But I
promise you, not a day passes without my huggin’ myself to think I’m
still a bachelor.”
He gave Bertram his hand, asked him to call soon at his chambers, and
jumped into a cab. He was sorry that these efforts at consolation had
not been successful, but presently he shrugged his shoulders.
“He’ll write a series of articles for a Radical paper on the wickedness
of the aristocracy, and that’ll soothe him a good sight better than I
could.”