While parliaments were dissolving and ministries forming, the
disappointed seeking consolation and the successful enjoying their
triumph, Simon, Earl of Montfort, who just missed being a great
philosopher, was reading “Topsy Turvy,” which infinitely amused him; the
style so picturesque and lambent! the tone so divertingly cynical! And
if the knowledge of society in its pages was not so distinguished as
that of human nature generally, this was a deficiency obvious only to a
comparatively limited circle of its readers.
Lord Montfort had reminded Endymion of his promise to introduce the
distinguished author to him, and accordingly, after due researches as to
his dwelling-place, Mr. Ferrars called in Jermyn Street and sent up
his card, to know whether Mr. St. Barbe would receive him. This was
evidently not a matter-of-course affair, and some little time had
elapsed when the maid-servant appeared, and beckoned to Endymion to
follow her upstairs.
In the front drawing-room of the first floor, robed in a flaming
dressing-gown, and standing with his back to the fire and to the
looking-glass, the frame of which was encrusted with cards of
invitation, the former colleague of Endymion received his visitor with a
somewhat haughty and reserved air.
“Well, I am delighted to see you again,” said Endymion.
No reply but a ceremonious bow.
“And to congratulate you,” Endymion added after a moment’s pause. “I
hear of nothing but of your book; I suppose one of the most successful
that have appeared for a long time.”
“Its success is not owing to your friends,” said Mr. St. Barbe tartly.
“My friends!” said Endymion; “what could they have done to prevent it?”
“They need not have dissolved parliament,” said Mr. St. Barbe with
irritation. “It was nearly fatal to me; it would have been to anybody
else. I was selling forty thousand a month; I believe more than Gushy
ever reached; and so they dissolved parliament. The sale went down half
at once--and now you expect me to support your party!”
“Well, it was unfortunate, but the dissolution could hardly have done
you any permanent injury, and you could scarcely expect that such an
event could be postponed even for the advantage of an individual so
distinguished as yourself.”
“Perhaps not,” said St. Barbe, apparently a little mollified, “but they
might have done something to show their regret at it.”
“Something!” said Endymion, “what sort of thing?”
“The prime minister might have called on me, or at least written to me
a letter. I want none of their honours; I have scores of letters every
day, suggesting that some high distinction should be conferred on me. I
believe the nation expects me to be made a baronet. By the by, I heard
the other day you had got into parliament. I know nothing of these
matters; they do not interest me. Is it the fact?”
“Well, I was so fortunate, and there are others of your old friends,
Trenchard, for example.”
“You do not mean to say that Trenchard is in parliament!” said
St. Barbe, throwing off all his affected reserve. “Well, it is too
disgusting! Trenchard in parliament, and I obliged to think it a great
favour if a man gives me a frank! Well, representative institutions have
seen their day. That is something.”
“I have come here on a social mission,” said Endymion in a soothing
tone. “There is a great admirer of yours who much wishes to make your
acquaintance. Trusting to our old intimacy, of which of course I am very
proud, it was even hoped that you might waive ceremony, and come and
dine.”
“Quite impossible!” exclaimed St. Barbe, and turning round, he pointed
to the legion of invitations before him. “You see, the world is at my
feet. I remember that fellow Seymour Hicks taking me to his rooms to
show me a card he had from a countess. What would he say to this?”
“Well, but you cannot be engaged to dinner every day,” said Endymion;
“and you really may choose any day you like.”
“Well, there are not many dinners among them, to be sure,” said St.
Barbe. “Small and earlies. How I hate a ‘small and early’! Shown into a
room where you meet a select few who have been asked to dinner, and who
are chewing the cud like a herd of kine, and you are expected to tumble
before them to assist their digestion! Faugh! No, sir; we only dine
out now, and we think twice, I can tell you, before we accept even an
invitation to dinner. Who’s your friend?”
“Well, my friend is Lord Montfort.”
“You do not mean to say that! And he is an admirer of mine?”
“An enthusiastic admirer.”
“I will dine with Lord Montfort. There is no one who appreciates so
completely and so highly the old nobility of England as myself. They are
a real aristocracy. None of the pinchbeck pedigrees and ormolu titles
of the continent. Lord Montfort is, I think, an earl. A splendid title,
earl! an English earl; count goes for nothing. The Earl of Montfort! An
enthusiastic admirer of mine! The aristocracy of England, especially the
old aristocracy, are highly cultivated. Sympathy from such a class is
to be valued. I care for no other--I have always despised the million of
vulgar. They have come to me, not I to them, and I have always told
them the truth about themselves, that they are a race of snobs, and they
rather like being told so. And now for your day?”
“Why not this day if you be free? I will call for you about eight, and
take you in my brougham to Montfort House.”
“You have got a brougham! Well, I suppose so, being a member of
parliament, though I know a good many members of parliament who have not
got broughams. But your family, I remember, married into the swells. I
do not grudge it you. You were always a good comrade to me. I never knew
a man more free from envy than you, Ferrars, and envy is an odious vice.
There are people I know, who, when they hear I have dined with the Earl
of Montfort, will invent all sorts of stories against me, and send them
to what they call the journals of society.”
“Well, then, it shall be to-day,” said Endymion, rising.
“It shall be to-day, and to tell the truth, I was thinking this morning
where I should dine to-day. What I miss here are the cafes. Now in Paris
you can dine every day exactly as it suits your means and mood. You may
dine for a couple of francs in a quiet, unknown street, and very well;
or you may dine for a couple of napoleons in a flaming saloon, with
windows opening on a crowded boulevard. London is deficient in dining
capability.”
“You should belong to a club. Do you not?”
“So I was told by a friend of mine the other day,--one of your great
swells. He said I ought to belong to the Athenaeum, and he would
propose me, and the committee would elect me as a matter of course. They
rejected me and selected a bishop. And then people are surprised that
the Church is in danger!”