The central offices of Bullion and Bullion Ltd. were in Lombard Street.
They occupied a large building constructed of ferroconcrete, on each
floor of which, except the first, there was accommodation for hundreds
of clerks.
The room occupied by Sir Joseph Bullion, on the first floor, was one of
those apartments with very tall mantelpieces and enormous windows, which
seem to have been designed for a race of giants. Certainly Sir Joseph
himself, unless he had climbed on a chair, could never have rested his
elbow against the mantelpiece, nor could he have deposited his cigar
thereon without an unusually strenuous effort. The remaining
appointments of the room, except for two or three exquisite Stuart
cabinets and some priceless old masters on the walls, were designed on
the same scale. Sir Joseph's own table, for instance, though of normal
height, looked as if it might have been purchased by the acre, while the
carpet, a huge Turkey, presented an enormously long pile, as soft as
moss, to the feet. Even the chair on which the head of the firm sat was
exceptionally large, and seemed to offer its occupant the constant
alternative of definitely selecting either one or the other side of the
extensive surface which lay between its arms.
Opposite him at a smaller table sat his chief private secretary, Denis
Malster, a pale, clean-shaven, intelligent-looking young man, with
mouse-coloured hair, grey eyes, and somewhat thin lips. Certainly Mrs.
Delarayne must have been right about his sense of humour, for a pleasant
twinkle played about his eyes, even while he was at work, which gave him
the air of one amused by what he was doing.
Sir Joseph did not pretend to understand the people who served him; but
having been hard driven himself in his day, he had a pretty shrewd
notion of the power he could safely exercise over them, and of the
duties, supplementary to the office routine, which he could reasonably
induce them to fulfil. To make fourths at tennis or at bridge, to fill a
gap at a Cinderella dance or at a dinner, or to help at a charity
bazaar--these were some of the duties which Sir Joseph's highest
personnel knew that they might be called upon to perform at any moment
for one of Sir Joseph's numerous lady friends.
Thus a few days after his visit to Mrs. Delarayne, which has already
been described, the Chairman of Bullion and Bullion Ltd., occupying the
centre of his thronelike chair, was engaged on two tasks, either one of
which would have been sufficient to occupy the wits of any ordinary
man. He had before him the figures showing the business of his firm for
the half year, and in the intervals of his study of these data, he was
covertly watching his chief private secretary, with a view to estimating
his chances of success in regard to a certain secret scheme in which
this young man was to play a leading part.
Suddenly his dual activities were interrupted by the chief messenger,
who, entering in his usual pompous fashion, presented a card to his
chief, bearing the name Aubrey St. Maur. "The gentleman wishes to see
you urgently, Sir Joseph," said the man.
Sir Joseph passed the card to his assistant, and waited for
enlightenment.
Denis Malster examined it, rose, and returned it to Sir Joseph. "Lives
in Upper Brook Street, Mayfair," he said; "he's evidently somebody, but
I've never heard of him."
"The point is," Sir Joseph exclaimed sharply, "have I an appointment
with him?"
"No, sir, you have no appointment with him," said Denis firmly, without
referring to the notes on his table.
Sir Joseph was too well aware of his secretary's efficiency to doubt
this assurance, and bade him go to see what Mr. Aubrey St. Maur wanted.
In a moment Denis returned. "He's from Lord Henry Highbarn," he informed
his chief. "He wishes to deliver a message to you."
Sir Joseph glanced out of the huge window at his side, and appeared to
take counsel of the tangle of chimney pots and telegraph wires that
formed the only prospect from that side of the building. He repeated the
name once or twice in a mystified manner, at length remembered the
difficult task Mrs. Delarayne had asked him to perform in persuading
Lord Henry to abandon his mission to China, and bade his secretary show
St. Maur in.
The young man who followed Denis back into the room was a person of
refined and handsome appearance, who, as he advanced towards Sir Joseph,
introduced himself and explained his business with a degree of grace and
composure at which even the seasoned old Stuart furniture seemed to
stare in amazement.
St. Maur took a chair beside Sir Joseph's vast table, and Malster
returned to his place.
"You are doubtless aware," said the stranger, "that Lord Henry was due
here at this very moment."
Sir Joseph looked furtively towards his secretary and nodded.
St. Maur then proceeded to explain that owing to urgent Party duties at
Westminster Lord Henry could not possibly reach Lombard Street before
six o'clock that evening, and begged Sir Joseph to say whether he could
see him at that hour. He was to return to Westminster at once and convey
Sir Joseph's reply to Lord Henry.
The baronet fixed the appointment with Lord Henry for that hour, and St.
Maur rose to go.
"Half a minute!" exclaimed Sir Joseph. "Please remain seated a moment
longer, Mr. St. Maur, and tell me something about Lord Henry. I am a
busy man and have not much time to keep myself informed of all these
matters. Lord Henry must be a younger son of the Marquis of Firle, is he
not?"
"He's the third and youngest son," replied St. Maur.
"And may I ask for details about the title;--you must think me
dreadfully ignorant!"
"Not at all, sir," St. Maur answered. "It is a Charles I. creation. They
are a Sussex family. As you probably know, Charles I. did not create
peers indiscriminately. The Stuart creations are, on the whole, a credit
to the monarchs who were responsible for them, particularly those of
Charles I."
Sir Joseph nodded politely, but looked as if this information did not
quite harmonise with his own conception of that prince.
"The fourth Earl of Chesterfield perhaps disgraced himself a little over
Dr. Johnson," St. Maur added, "but as a rule the families who owe their
rank to the Royal Martyr have upheld their great traditions with
singular success. And possibly against the case of the fourth Earl of
Chesterfield we may set that of the sixth Lord Byron, who gave us
_Childe Harold_ and _Manfred_."
Sir Joseph was genuinely interested. "Lord Henry is, I believe, a very
wonderful personality," he remarked.
"You are right, sir," replied St. Maur, "very wonderful."
The young man rose again. He was a little above medium height, with dark
crisp hair and a sallow complexion. His figure and features gave the
impression of metallic virility: they were at once hard, supple,
clean-cut, and finely moulded. His mouth was a little full, and his jaw
perhaps a trifle heavy, but the deep thoughtful eyes gave a balance to
his face which saved it from appearing unduly sensual.
"That is a pleasant young man," Sir Joseph declared, when St. Maur had
gone.
"Yes," Denis replied half-heartedly. He, too, had been impressed by St.
Maur, but not favourably. For Denis Malster, cultivated, sleek, and
refined though he was, just lacked that exuberance and vitality which he
had observed in St. Maur, and which made the latter so conspicuously his
superior. Denis had nothing to compensate him for his tame, careful,
Kensington breeding. St. Maur, on the other hand, had that fire and
warmth of blood, without which even the highest breeding is little more
than the extirpation of the animal at the expense of the man. Denis was
an easy winner with the women of his class, precisely because of the
parade which, in his face, nature made of his gentle antecedents; but he
had sufficient intelligence to realise that when women are confronted
by a man possessing all he possessed, besides that something more that
was noticeable in St. Maur the best of them do not hesitate a second in
selecting the St. Maur type.
"I wonder if that is all true about Charles I.?" Sir Joseph demanded
with a little irritation.
Denis leant back in his chair and his eyes twinkled. "I doubt whether it
is true of Charles I.," he said; "but it certainly isn't true of his son
and heir, for Charles II. used the peerage more or less as a sort of
foundling hospital for his various illegitimate offspring."
Sir Joseph smiled, as he frequently did, at his secretary's odd way of
summing up a case, and then quickly resuming his gravity, glanced
searchingly at Denis as if pondering whether the word of such a man
could confidently be taken against that of an Aubrey St. Maur. For some
minutes he paced the rug in front of the fire-place, his hands behind
his back, and his head bowed. At last he raised his eyes and looked more
affably than usual at his assistant.
"You know, Malster," he began, "I've been thinking for some time that
although you appear to take to this work less quickly than some men I
have had, you are on the whole trying your hardest--are you not?"
Denis, a little startled by the palpable injustice of this remark, rose,
and resting the points of his fingers lightly on the table, leant
forward. "Ye--yes, sir," he stammered.
"'Ow old are you?" Sir Joseph continued.
"Twenty-eight, sir."
Sir Joseph repeated the words. "How much are you getting?"
"Eight hundred, sir," Denis replied.
Sir Joseph turned sharply on his heel and slightly accelerated his pace
across the rug.
"H'm! Well, I propose to make it a thousand," he said thoughtfully.
Denis Malster smiled nervously. "Thank you, Sir Joseph."
"I propose to do this," continued the baronet, "because I think you must
be wanting to marry, and because I think it wrong that a man of your age
should be prevented from marrying owing to lack of means. D'you
understand? Only that!"
"I think it most considerate of you," Denis faltered again.
"Well, that's settled," said Sir Joseph drily. "But," he added, always
on tenterhooks of anxiety lest one of his staff should begin to think
too much of himself, "I should like you to be quite clear about my
reasons for the change. I don't want you to run away with the notion
that I am giving you a rise because I am entirely satisfied with your
work."
As he said this Sir Joseph resumed his seat, and pulled in his heavy
chair as smartly as he was able, with the air of a man who had neatly
achieved his object without abandoning the usual safe-guards.
It was a minute to six when the messenger announced Lord Henry Highbarn,
and the moment the announcement was made, Denis, reaching for his hat
and stick, took leave of his chief. He strode out into the street with a
sprightly gait, humming as he went:
"I don't adore the girl in blue
For all her family's after you."
* * * * *
There is probably in most men a sense of quality, a power of divination
in regard to value which, on occasions when they are confronted by a
stranger whose worth they do not know, informs them immediately of the
comparative rarity or commonness of his type. This sense may at first be
baffled by the delusive disguises in which men sometimes present
themselves, but as a rule a chance word, an artless gesture, or even a
glance, quickly corrects the initial error of the eye, and in a moment
the original estimate is adjusted to the unmistakable evidence of a
definite quality.
When this peculiar apprehensiveness in regard to worth becomes aware of
any marked superiority in a fellow creature,--an experience which in
unhappy lives very seldom occurs,--a feeling of certainty usually
accompanies it, which is as mysterious as the evidence upon which it is
based is intangible and elusive. A man knows that he has met his
superior, he knows too how far the superiority he recognises extends,
and he is conscious of experiencing something exceptional, something
exquisitely precious.
That such encounters are becoming every day more rare, probably explains
the increasing growth, in modern times, of that kind of disbelief and
heresy which, far from being wanton, arises from a total inability to
envisage greatness, whether in kings, ideals, or gods. For we arrive at
our most exalted images, not by solitary flights of imagination
unassisted, but by actual progressive steps in the world of concrete
things; so that the spring-board from which we take our final leap into
the highest concepts of what a god might be, is always the highest man
we happen to have met. We can have no other starting-point. Hence in an
age when greatness among men is too rare to be felt as a universal fact,
a disbelief in all gods is bound sooner or later to supervene.
When Lord Henry Highbarn presented himself before Sir Joseph, it was
plain from the meek droop of the baronet's eyelids and the subdued
hesitating tone of his voice, that something in the young nobleman's
appearance had like a flash intimated to the experienced financial
magnate that here was someone of a quality as unfamiliar as it was rare.
Moreover, the difference which the older man felt distinguished him from
his visitor was of a kind too fundamental and insuperable to challenge
even that friendly rivalry so instinctive between two natures each
conscious of their own particular efficiency and excellence.
Indeed, it needed all the elaborate complications of our modern
civilisation to account even for the meeting of these two people under
the same roof, not to speak of the fact that they met on an equal
footing.
The one, a plain but not unpretentious man of business, still a little
perplexed by his stupendous success, and not yet certain of his precise
social level, revealed in his unshapely but kindly features the modest
rung on which Nature herself would probably have placed him, if the
peculiar economic conditions of his Age had not intervened to bring
about a different result; while two characteristics alone led one to
suspect his latent power,--his large energetic hands with their powerful
spatulate fingers, and his masterful and meditative dark eyes.
The other,--a tall, muscular, youthful-looking aristocrat, with deep-set
thoughtful blue eyes, a straight finely-chiselled nose, and a full
eloquent mouth (the whole overshadowed by an unusually lofty brow, from
which, particularly over the temples, the hair had noticeably
receded)--possessed that unconscious ease of manner and unassertive
masterfulness of bearing, which derive on the one hand from breeding,
and on the other from a constant habit of preoccupation with external
problems, that is unfavourable to any self-concern. As his alert vision
took in the details of his surroundings, including the person of Sir
Joseph himself, on whom he appeared to cast only the most casual
sidelong glances, it was clear that his mind, far from being occupied
with internal questionings, was measuring even then the probable extent
to which this visit might serve some ultimate important purpose upon
which the whole gravity and earnestness of his being seemed to be
concentrated; and if his solemn features occasionally relaxed into a
smile, it was precisely the habitual gravity of his mien that lent his
passing levity such extraordinarily persuasive merriness.
It was chiefly Lord Henry's air of preoccupation that set Sir Joseph so
quickly at his ease. For although the baronet was familiar enough with
the sons of peers and peers themselves,--for had he not a number of them
on his various boards?--there was, as we have seen, something more than
mere rank in his youthful visitor to disturb him.
While the first courteous platitudes were being exchanged, Sir Joseph
quietly took stock of his companion, and was for a brief moment a little
perturbed by the latter's unconventional attire.
We have noticed that though he was young, Lord Henry's hair receded a
little from his brow, and made it appear even loftier than it actually
was. Between the high bald temples, however, a wisp of stiff fair hair
still remained over the centre of the young man's forehead, somewhat
resembling that seen in the portraits of Napoleon, and with this tuft
his long well-shaped and sensitive fingers would play continuously
while he spoke, with the result that he constantly bowed his head.
Occasionally, therefore, when his customary gravity gave way for a space
and his face was irradiated with a smile or a laugh, an expression of
such irresistible and almost wicked mirth suffused his features, owing
to the upward glance he was constrained to give you from the bowed angle
of his head, that willy-nilly you were compelled to laugh with him.
Sir Joseph felt this; he was also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but
what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and
apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked
hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all
askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a moment
almost offensive.
It was strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his
attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the
wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph
ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to
associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature before
him.
"Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry, "would give me no peace until I came
to see you, Sir Joseph, so you must forgive me for forcing myself upon
you in this way, and relying for your forbearance simply upon the
strength of the friendship you bear her."
He laughed, and Sir Joseph perforce laughed with him.
"'Ave you seen her lately?" the baronet enquired.
"She's always seeing me," Lord Henry replied, smiling in a manner that
was at once childishly winsome and wise. He was still startlingly
boyish, despite his thirty-three years, and though his slight baldness
added a few years to his face, he did not look a month older than
five-and-twenty.
"She is very fond of you," Sir Joseph proceeded earnestly, beginning to
feel, for the first time, not only that Mrs. Delarayne's infatuation was
clearly justified, but also that young St. Maur had probably been right
in his remarks concerning Charles I.'s creations. It was strange to
recognise the evidences of unusual wisdom in such a childish face; it
reminded him vaguely of what he had heard or dreamt of Chinese
mandarins,--evidently such phenomena were possible.
"She's an amazingly captivating woman," muttered Lord Henry, still
pulling at the tuft of hair over his brow. "Her blank refusal to accept
the fact of her advancing years is the most wonderful and at the same
time the most pathetic thing about her."
Sir Joseph, with an expression of deep curiosity, leant heavily over the
right arm of his chair, and stared expectantly at his visitor.
"She has not had her second decisive love affair, you see," Lord Henry
continued. "And every day she arrays herself to experience it,--that
second and decisive love affair which alone reconciles the best women to
old age and to snow-white locks."
Sir Joseph fidgeted. He did not understand, but thought he did. "Her
second and decisive love affair," he repeated,--"yes."
"We are apt to forget," continued Lord Henry, "that all deep, decently
constituted women have two definite relationships to man, one alone of
which is insufficient to satisfy them. The first is their relationship
of wife to the man more or less of their own generation whom they have
loved; the second is the relationship of mother to the man of their
children's generation, whom under favourable circumstances they
worship."
Sir Joseph shifted in his chair, raised his hand to his chin and looked
fixedly at the speaker.
"This last and most precious relationship is the only one that
reconciles a woman to her wrinkles and makes her happy in her grey
hairs. Without it she takes to peroxide, smooths out her wrinkles with
cream, and what is even more tragic, developes a tendency to pursue the
young men of her children's generation. People call it ridiculous,
lunatic,--so it would be, if it were not so nobly, so terribly
pathetic."
"But I have known women with grown-up sons behave exactly as Mrs.
Delarayne behaves," Sir Joseph objected with as much breath as he could
summon in his surprise at what Lord Henry had said.
"Not sons with whom they are in love," Lord Henry corrected. "Most
mothers have sons, but of these not all experience that great love for
one of their male offspring which is perhaps the most beautiful, the
most passionate, and the most permanent of earthly relationships. Mrs.
Delarayne is obviously a woman who would have been capable of such a
relationship had she only had a son."
"Is it only one particular son?" Sir Joseph enquired with an unconscious
note of profound humility in his voice.
"Always--yes!"
Lord Henry, still tugging at his wisp of hair, now turned to Sir Joseph,
and blinking very quickly, as was his wont when deeply absorbed in a
subject, contemplated the baronet for a moment in silence.
"Doesn't that clear up the problem of Mrs. Delarayne a little for you?"
he asked at last. "Believe me, few women care to admit that they are
thirty-five unless they have a husband whom they love, and still fewer
women resign themselves to their fiftieth year unless they are wrapped
up in a beloved son."
Sir Joseph, to whom Mrs. Delarayne, except for her repeated refusals of
his hand, had never been precisely a problem, demurred a little. "It
certainly sheds some light,--yes," he said slowly. "But don't you think
that a second great love with a man more or less of her own generation
is equally satisfying to a woman like that?"
"How can it be when it is simply a repetition of a former and thoroughly
explored experience?" Lord Henry replied. "I do not mean, mind you, that
great-hearted women who have not enjoyed that exquisite relationship to
a beloved son, are conscious that it is this circumstance which has been
lacking in their lives. Because precious little whatever is conscious in
the best women. But in their loathing and repudiation of advancing
years, and in their repeated attachments to men of my generation, such
women reveal to the psychologist the constant ache they feel from the
vast empty chamber in their hearts."
For some moments Sir Joseph played idly with an ivory paper-knife on his
desk. He had completely forgotten the object of Lord Henry's visit. It
was as if he had always known the man, and that they were just having
one of their usual pleasant chats after their work was done. Such was
the power that Lord Henry possessed of immersing his listeners in the
thoughts that occupied his mind.
"And this," continued the younger man, after a while, "is the only
consideration which makes me feel I ought to marry. I mean that it
almost amounts to wanton vandalism not to give a wife of one's choice
and a son of one's own begetting at least the chance of beautifying the
world by this most wonderful of all relationships."
"You are a poet," said Sir Joseph with that spontaneous penetration of
which the uncultivated are sometimes capable.
"If to understand Mrs. Delarayne a man must be a poet, then I am one,"
Lord Henry replied, smiling in his irresistible way.
Sir Joseph perforce smiled too, and the return to earth which this faint
levity signified, reminded him of the real object of the young
nobleman's visit. The thought did not reassure him, however; for after
all the intelligence he had been able to glean regarding his visitor's
character, he realised that if Lord Henry had resolved to undertake this
mission to China, it would obviously serve no purpose to exhort him to
change his mind. It was clear that Mrs. Delarayne could not have
understood the man she was dealing with; or, if she had, she must have
urged this step as a last hope.
As a forlorn hope it certainly appeared to Sir Joseph, and it was only
half-heartedly that he opened the attack.
"And now tell me about China," he said. "Have you quite made up your
mind?"
Lord Henry rose, thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and
paced the hearth-rug.
"I think so," he replied, musing deeply as he glanced from one to the
other of Sir Joseph's art treasures.
"But you are doing good here," the baronet protested feebly. "What good
will you do in China?"
"I'm not convinced that I am doing good here," Lord Henry rejoined
sharply. "That's precisely the point."
"But everybody says you are."
"No doubt."
Sir Joseph turned to his ivory paper-knife. He did not understand.
"If it's doing good," Lord Henry added, "to salve the nervous wreckage
that our unspeakable Western civilisation produces with every
generation; if it's doing good to render the disastrous mess which we
have made of human life possible for a few years longer, by bringing
relief to the principal victims of it; then, indeed, I am a desirable
member of society. But I question the whole thing. I question very much
whether it can be doing good to help this hopeless condition of things
to last one moment longer than it need."
Sir Joseph glanced up a little anxiously. "Are you serious?" he
enquired.
Lord Henry sat down again.
"Am I serious?" he scoffed. "Can you be serious, can you be sane, and
expect me to think otherwise? But you have been a great success by means
of the very system which is rotten and iniquitous to the core. How could
you sympathise?"
Sir Joseph stammered hopelessly that he was trying to sympathise.
"You are no doubt convinced," Lord Henry continued, "that all you are
witnessing to-day is what you would call Progress. And the further we
recede from a true understanding of human life and its most vital needs,
and the more we complicate the world and increase its machinery, the
more persuaded you become of the reality of your illusion. How could it
be otherwise?"
Sir Joseph expostulated ineffectually, and Lord Henry continued:
"Still, I am not a reformer," he said. "I do not wish to reform, even if
I could. It is not only too late, things are also too desperate. What I
chiefly want is to take refuge somewhere where humanity and its deepest
needs are the subject of greater mastery, greater understanding; so that
I can cease from being distracted by the immensity of modern error. No
great intellect, no great creative power can exist in this country;
because the moment it becomes conscious it is so obsessed by the shams
and the shamelessness that surround it, that instead of devoting itself
to the joys and enrichment of life, it feels impelled by the horrors on
every side to take up the social system and attempt to put it right.
This sterile pitfall is now the temptation of the greatest minds. Your
Shelley, your Coleridge, even your Byron,--what did they do? Menaced by
this same vortex of negative effort, sentenced to intellectual
annihilation if they attempted to straighten out the muddle of
modernity, they fled, or drowned themselves in water or opium."
He had ceased playing with his tuft of hair. His face was distraught
with indignation and with the bitterness of a thwarted love of mankind;
it was also illuminated by the distant dream of a world as he would have
it, so that though he brought down his fist on the corner of Sir
Joseph's table with some weight, the baronet was too much moved to
notice the gesture.
"Things are so bad," he pursued, lightly lowering his voice, "that to
have any genuine insight to-day, any special human feeling to-day, means
perforce to devote these gifts to the social problem, instead of to art
and to beauty. That is the curse of being born into this Age. The
gigantic ghastliness of modern Western civilisation successfully engulfs
every superior brain that comes to being in its midst."
Sir Joseph fell back limply in his chair. He acknowledged the game was
lost before the struggle had actually begun. How could he presume to
strike a bargain with such a man? He remembered Mrs. Delarayne, however,
and braced himself once more.
"There are times," Lord Henry began again, glancing kindly at Sir
Joseph, "when I feel that perhaps I ought at least to risk even my life
in order to do something here, in this country. But what is one man's
life in the face of this sea of blunders? What is even a giant's effort,
against the Lilliputian swarm of modern men who are determined to gain
the precipice?"
"I was hoping," said Sir Joseph quietly, "that I might make you an
offer which would induce you to abandon this mission to the Far East. I
was hoping, in fact, that I might help you."
Lord Henry glanced thoughtfully at the baronet and then shook his head.
Sir Joseph, more and more convinced that he was embarking on a hopeless
enterprise, persisted notwithstanding.
"I am prepared to put a considerable sum of money at your disposal," he
said. "I believe your sanatorium for nervous disorders in Kent is a
veritable public boon. I feel that I could not find a nobler public
object for my wealth than to support you in your work."
Lord Henry rapped his fingers on his knees impatiently.
"Could I not assist you in enlarging this establishment? Could I not
give it a permanent foundation or effect what alterations in it you may
suggest for its improvement and greater utility? If by the same token I
succeeded in retaining you in England, I feel I should in addition be
doing a personal service to someone, to a lady, for whom you and I have
a very deep respect."
Lord Henry blinked rapidly as he turned to face the old gentleman at his
side, and his smile was kind and courteous.
"If, Sir Joseph, my only motive in going abroad were indeed to transact
the business of the Society for Anthropological Research, I might
perhaps be induced to yield to the temptation you so generously put in
my way. But seeing that possibly my principal object is to give my
endowments a fair chance away from this whirlpool of confusion, which
makes social reform a morbid _idee fixe_, I cannot persuade myself that
it would be worth while."
"But supposing," Sir Joseph persisted lamely, "I gave you
_carte-blanche_ to extend your work as you liked?"
"And with what object?"
"I have told you the object," the baronet replied mildly.
"No!" exclaimed the younger man with emphasis. "The object would be to
add to the organisations which are springing up everywhere for the
purpose of making our impossible civilisation possible for at least a
little while longer. _That_ would be the ultimate object."
"How much would you require?" Sir Joseph suggested in his most melting
tones, still clinging desperately to his belief in the only bait he
possessed.
Lord Henry laughed despondently. "Only enough to purchase sufficient
dynamite to blow my present sanatorium skywards," he said. Then resuming
his gravity and rising, he extended a hand to the baronet.
"No," he added, "I'm afraid my mind is made up. I must leave this
country, Mrs. Delarayne or no Mrs. Delarayne. Thank you very much
indeed, all the same. I have seen you and enjoyed our talk. Mrs.
Delarayne's behest has at least been strictly obeyed."
"When will you be leaving?" Sir Joseph enquired, gracefully throwing
down his cards.
"In about three months' time, I expect."
"I am sorry, very sorry," ejaculated the baronet.
The two men walked gravely to the door.
On the threshold Lord Henry stopped, and looking methodically round the
room, pointed at last to one of the most beautiful of Sir Joseph's
Stuart cabinets.
"You also unconsciously acknowledge that there is something revolting
and intolerable about this Age, Sir Joseph," he said smiling
mischievously; "otherwise why do you use your wealth to surround
yourself both here, and as I understand at Brineweald too, with all the
treasures of art that were produced by our ancestors."
Lord Henry laughed again; his deep thoughtful eyes filled with the tears
of mirth, and he vanished from the room leaving Sir Joseph contemplating
his costly old furniture with feelings of utter bewilderment.