1
Roger Carey and Gilbert Farlow met him at Euston.
"Hilloa, Quinny!" Gilbert said, "I've been made a dramatic critic, and
I'm to do my first play to-night!"
"Hurray!" he answered, and turned to greet Roger.
"We've bagged a taxi," Gilbert went on. "The driver looks cheeky ...
that's why we hired him. We'll give him a tuppenny tip and then we'll
give him in charge!..."
"All taxi drivers are cheeky," Roger interrupted.
"But this is a very cheeky one!... Hi, porter!"
It was extraordinarily good to be with Gilbert and Roger again;
extraordinarily good to hear Gilbert's exaggerated speech and see him
ordering people about without hurting their feelings; extraordinarily
good to listen to Roger's slow, unflickering voice as he stated the
facts ... for Roger had always stated the facts. In all their
discussions, it was Roger who reminded them of the essential things,
refusing persistently to be carried away by Gilbert's imagination or
Ninian's impatience. People were sometimes irritated by Roger's slow,
imperturbable way of speaking ... they called him a prig ... but as they
knew him better, they lost their irritation and thought of him with
respect. "But we're all prigs," Gilbert said once in reply to some one
who sneered at Roger. "Ninian and Quinny and Roger and me, we're
frightful prigs. That's because we're so much brainier than most people.
Of course, Roger was Second Wrangler, and that affects a man, I suppose,
but he's terribly clever, young Roger is!..."
As they drove home, Gilbert told their news to Henry.
"Ninian's coming up to-morrow ... sooner than he meant to. He's very
keen on going to Harland and Wolff's, but he's afraid he's too old to
begin building ships. Tom Arthurs says he ought to have gone straight to
the Island from Rumpell's instead of going to Cambridge, and poor old
Ninian was horribly blasphemous about it all. It's funny to hear him
trying to talk like an Orangeman ... he mixes it up with Devonshire
dialect ... and thinks he's imitating Tom Arthurs. I suppose he'll have
to content himself with building railways and things like that. It's a
great pity!"
"I don't believe he really wants to be a shipbuilder," Roger said. "He
likes Tom Arthurs, and he wants to be what Arthurs is. That's all. If
Arthurs were a comedian, Ninian would want to be a comedian, too!"
"It must be splendid," Henry murmured, "to be able to influence people
like that!"
The taxi drew up to the door of a house in one of the quieter Bloomsbury
squares, and Henry, looking out of the window, while Gilbert opened the
door of the cab, saw that the garden in the centre of the square was
very green. He could see figures in white flannels running and jumping,
and the sound of tennis balls, as they collided with the racquets,
pleased him.
"Your room overlooks the square," Gilbert said, as Henry got out of the
cab.
"Splendid!" he replied. "I shall imagine I'm in Dublin when I look out
of the window. It's just like Merrion Square!..."
"Well, pay the cabby, will you? I'm broke!" said Gilbert.
"You always are," Roger murmured.
2
Ninian joined them on the following day, very cheerless and irritable.
It was impossible for him to enter the shipbuilding firm owing to his
age, and so he had decided to enter the offices of a firm of engineers
in London. "Anybody can build a damned railway," he said, "but it takes
a man to build a ship. I'd love to build a liner ... one that could
cross the Atlantic in four days!"
"Four days!" Gilbert scoffed. "My dear Ninian, boats don't crawl across
the ocean! People want boats that will take them to New York in
twenty-four hours!..."
"And now, young fellows!" he went on, "it's time that we thought
seriously about our immortal souls!"
"Oh, is it?" said Ninian.
"Yes, it is," Gilbert replied.
They had dined, and were now sitting in Gilbert's room in the lax
attitude of people who have eaten well and are content.
"Here we are," Gilbert went on, using his pipe as a modulator of his
points, "four bright lads simply bursting with brains, and the question
is, what is to become of us? The Boy: What Will He Become? Take Roger,
for example, will he become Lord Chancellor of England, or a footling
little Registrar of a footling County Court?..."
"I haven't had a brief yet," Roger interrupted, "so that question's
somewhat premature, isn't it?"
"I'm not talking about _now_ ... I'm talking about the future," Gilbert
replied. "We ought to have some notion of what we're going to do with
our lives.... As a matter of fact," he continued, "your career's fairly
certain, Roger. With all that brain oozing out of you, you're bound to
become great. But what about little Ninian here? And Quinny? And me?
Ninian's a discontented sort of bloke, and he's quite likely to make a
mess of things unless we look after him. He may turn out to be a very
great engineer or he may go back to Boveyhayne and play the
turnip-headed squire!..."
"Always rotting a chap," Ninian mumbled.
"And Quinny ... what about little Quinny? He's written a novel!..."
"Written a what?" Ninian demanded, sitting up sharply.
"Have you, Quinny?" said Roger.
Henry blushed and nodded his head. "It isn't good," he said. "I shall
have to re-write it!"
"My Lord," said Ninian, "fancy one of us writing a book!"
Gilbert slapped him on the side of the head. "You forget, Ninian, that
I've written a play!..."
"A play's not a book!..."
"_My_ plays are books," Gilbert retorted. "Well, now," he went on,
"what's to become of little Quinny: a tip-top novelist with a limited
circulation or a third-rater who sells millions?"
"What about yourself?" Ninian said.
"I'm coming to myself. Will I become a great dramatist, like Shakespeare
and Bernard Shaw and all those chaps, or merely turn out hack plays?..."
"And the answer is?"
"I don't know, but I'll tell you in ten years' time. We're a brainy lot
of lads, and I'm the brainiest of the lot!..."
"Oh, no, you're not," said Ninian. "I've quite a respectable amount of
brain myself, but the very best brain in the room belongs to Roger.
Doesn't it, Roger?"
"I don't despise my brain, Ninian!" Roger answered.
"Observe the modest demeanour of the truly great man," Gilbert
exclaimed. "You'll have to go into politics, Roger. It isn't any good
being a barrister unless you do!"
"I've thought of that," Roger answered. "At the moment, I'm wondering
which side I'm on. I might manage to get a seat as a Liberal, but I
don't believe it would be of much use to me if I got it. I think I shall
join the Tories!..."
"Are you a Tory?" Ninian said, "I thought you were a Liberal!"
"No, I'm a barrister. You see," he went on, as if he were arguing a
case, "the Liberal majority is too big and there are far too many
clever young men in the party. I should only be one of a crowd if I went
into the House now as a Liberal ... and of course I'm not likely to be
given a chance of standing for a seat because they've a lot of people on
the list already. But the Tories have hardly any clever chaps left.
There's Balfour and there's Chamberlain ... and then what is there?"
"Nothing!" said Gilbert.
"A clever man of my age has the chance of a lifetime with the Tories
now," Roger continued. "Look at F. E. Robinson ... and he's only a
third-rater!"
Gilbert told a story of the early days of the Tory Party after the
General Election of 1900 when the Tories had been completely routed by
the Liberals. "The Tory remnant was as thick-headed as it could be," he
said, "and the Liberals were bursting with brains. Balfour came into the
House one night ... he'd just been re-elected ... and he sat down beside
Chamberlain. They were frightfully blue. Balfour had a look at the
Liberals, and then he turned to his own back-benches and had a look at
the Tories. Of course, it may not be true, but they say he went pale
with fright. He turned to Chamberlain and said, "My God, Joseph!" and
then Chamberlain turned and looked at the Tories and said, "My God,
Arthur!" You see, Chamberlain never noticed things until Balfour pointed
them out to him, and then he noticed them too much. They went out of the
House immediately afterwards and shook hands with each other, and
Chamberlain said 'Arthur, _we're_ the Opposition!' And so they were.
Poor Balfour was awfully lonely after Chamberlain crocked up. Not a soul
on his own side that was fit to talk to! It was easy enough for F. E.
Robinson to make a name in a crowd like that. And they loathe him, too.
He's such a bounder! But they need a fellow to heave mud, so they put up
with him. Roger's got more brains in his little finger than that fellow
has in his whole body. Haven't you, Roger?"
"People don't have brains in their little fingers," Roger answered.
"You should join the Tories, Roger," Ninian said. "There really isn't
much difference between them. My father was a Conservative, but my Uncle
Geoffrey was a Liberal. When father was in, uncle was out. It amounted
to the same thing in the end!..."
"But Roger ought to be a different sort of Tory!" Gilbert exclaimed.
"It's no good having all his brain if he's just going to peddle around
with the same old stuff...."
"I don't intend to do that," said Roger.
"Well, what do you intend to do?"
Ninian seized a cushion and put it behind his back.
"Let's have a good old argle-bargle," he said. "What do you say,
Quinny?"
Henry, who had not joined in the discussion, leant forward and smiled.
"Oh, I like listening to you," he answered. "You're all so sure of
yourselves!..."
Gilbert turned on him. "Well, aren't you sure of yourself?" he demanded.
"No, I'm not," Henry answered. "I never am!"
"That's queer," said Gilbert.
"Damned queer," said Ninian.
"Why are you so uncertain of yourself?" Roger asked.
"Don't you feel sure that you'll be a great novelist?" Gilbert added
before Henry had time to reply to Roger's question.
"I know jolly well I shall be a clinking good engineer!" Ninian said.
Henry had a shy unwillingness to discuss himself in front of the others,
although they were his closest friends. He felt that he could not sit
still while they watched him as he told them of his ambitions and his
fears.
"Oh, don't let's talk about me," he said. "Go on with your
argle-bargle." He was speaking hurriedly, so that he had difficulty in
articulating his words. "You were saying something, Ninian, weren't you
... no, it was you, Roger, about politics!..."
"Oh, yes!" Roger answered.
"Rum chap, you are!" Gilbert said to Henry in a low voice.
3
"You see," said Roger, "my notion is to restore the prestige of the
Tories. Somehow, they've let themselves get the reputation of being
consciously heartless. The Liberals go about proclaiming that they are
the friends of the poor, and the inference is that the Tories are the
friends of the rich!"
"So they are," said Ninian.
"So are the Liberals!" said Roger.
"So's everybody!" said Gilbert.
"But the Tories aren't culpably the friends of the rich," Roger
continued. "I mean, they don't go into parliament with the intention of
exploiting poor men for the benefit of rich men. It isn't true that they
are indifferent to the fate of poor men; but they have allowed the
Liberals to give them that character. I've always said that the Tories
have the courage of the Liberals' convictions!..."
Gilbert lay back on the floor with his arms under his head. "I remember
the first time you said that. It was in the Union!" he exclaimed.
"I shall say it again in the House some day," Roger retorted. "I'm not
trying to be funny when I say that. I think the history of the Tory
Party shows very plainly that the Tories have done very admirable things
for the working-people: Factory Acts and Housing schemes and Workmen's
Compensation Acts. Well, I want the Tory Party to remember that it is
the custodian of the decency of England. It isn't decent that there
should be hungry children and unemployed men and badly-housed families.
That kind of thing is intolerable to a gentleman, and a Tory is a
gentleman. It seems to me inconceivable that a Tory should be willing to
make money by cheating a child out of a meal ... but there are plenty of
Liberals who do that. And I'm against all this legislation which makes
some public authority do things for people which they ought to be doing
for themselves. I mean, I hate the notion of the State feeding hungry
school-children because the parents cannot afford to feed them, when the
proper thing to do is to see that the parents are paid enough for their
work to enable them to feed their children themselves. I suppose I'm
sloppy ... the Fabians used to say so at Cambridge ... but I prefer the
spectacle of a family round its own table to the spectacle of a crowd of
assorted youngsters round a municipal school table! And I don't think
we're getting the most out of our people! Just think of the millions of
men and women in this country who really do not earn more than their
keep! That isn't good enough. If you can only just keep yourself going,
then you've no right to go ... except to hell as quickly as possible. My
idea is that we waste potentialities at present, not by squandering
them, but by never using them. All those poor people, for example, how
do we know that some of them, if given an opportunity, would not be
amazingly worth while! There must be a great deal of brain-power simply
chucked away or misused. I know that lots of people believe that men of
genius work their way up to their level no matter how low down they
begin, but I doubt that, and anyhow I'm not talking of geniuses ... I'm
talking of the average clever man ... there must be men of good average
quality lost in slums because none of us have taken the trouble to clear
the ground for them. And the ground has to be cleared! You can't grow
wheat on a sour soil. I often think when I see some hooligan brought
into Court that, given a real chance, he might have been a better judge
than the man who sends him to gaol. The Tory's job is to restore the
balance of things. It isn't only to maintain the level, but to raise it
and to keep on raising it.... I believe in the State of Poise, of
equitable adjustment, in which every man will be able to move easily to
his proper place.... There are so many obstacles now in the way of man
finding his place that, even if he has the strength to get over them, he
probably won't have the strength to fill it...."
"My view, perhaps, is narrower than yours, Roger," Henry said, "but I
see all these people chiefly as men and women who are shut out of
things: books and pictures and plays and music and all the decent
things. I don't believe that if they had the chance they would all read
Meredith and admire Whistler and go to see Shaw's plays and want to
listen to Wagner ... that's not the point, and anyhow the middle and the
upper classes are not all marvellously cultured. My point is that their
lives are such that they don't even know of Meredith and Whistler and
Shaw and Wagner. They don't even know of the second-rate people or the
third rate. Magnolia, for instance ... I suppose she reads novelettes,
and when she grows out of novelettes, she won't read anything. And she
can't afford to go to a West End theatre.... When I think of these
people, millions of 'em, I think of them as people like Magnolia,
completely shut out of things like that, not even aware of them...."
They spent the remainder of the evening in argument, their talk ranging
over the wide field of human activity. They established a system of
continual criticism of existing institutions. "Challenge everything,"
said Gilbert; "make it justify its existence." They tried to discover
the truth about things, to shed their prejudices and to see the facts of
life exactly as they were. "The great thing is to get rid of Slop!" said
Roger. "We've got to convince the judge as well as move the jury. It
isn't enough to make the jury feel sloppy ... any ass can do that.
You've got to convince the old chap on the bench or you won't get a
verdict. That's my belief, and I believe, too, that the jury is more
likely to listen to reason than people imagine!"
They did not finish their argument that evening nor on any particular
evening. They were spread over a long period, and were part of the
process of clearing their minds of cobwebs.
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 aesthetic 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!"