Part 40

“But publicly?”

“I asked three questions yesterday. And for one of them I had to consult nine books!”

We were drifting, I could see, towards Doctor Haig's system of dietary, and whether the exclusion or inclusion of fish and chicken were most conducive to high efficiency, when Britten, who had refused lemonade and claret and demanded Burgundy, broke out, and was discovered to be demanding in his throat just what we Young Liberals thought we were up to?

“I want,” said Britten, repeating his challenge a little louder, “to hear just exactly what you think you are doing in Parliament?”

Lewis laughed nervously, and thought we were “Seeking the Good of the Community.”

“HOW?”

“Beneficient Legislation,” said Lewis.

“Beneficient in what direction?” insisted Britten. “I want to know where you think you are going.”

“Amelioration of Social Conditions,” said Lewis.

“That's only a phrase!”

“You wouldn't have me sketch bills at dinner?”

“I'd like you to indicate directions,” said Britten, and waited.

“Upward and On,” said Lewis with conscious neatness, and turned to ask Mrs. Bunting Harblow about her little boy's French.

For a time talk frothed over Britten's head, but the natural mischief in Mrs. Millingham had been stirred, and she was presently echoing his demand in lisping, quasi-confidential undertones. “What ARE we Liberals doing?” Then Esmeer fell in with the revolutionaries.

To begin with, I was a little shocked by this clamour for fundamentals--and a little disconcerted. I had the experience that I suppose comes to every one at times of discovering oneself together with two different sets of people with whom one has maintained two different sets of attitudes. It had always been, I perceived, an instinctive suppression in our circle that we shouldn't be more than vague about our political ideals. It had almost become part of my morality to respect this convention. It was understood we were all working hard, and keeping ourselves fit, tremendously fit, under Altiora's inspiration, Pro Bono Publico. Bunting Harblow had his under-secretaryship, and Lewis was on the verge of the Cabinet, and these things we considered to be in the nature of confirmations.... It added to the discomfort of the situation that these plunging enquiries were being made in the presence of our wives.

The rebel section of our party forced the talk.

Edward Crampton was presently declaring--I forget in what relation: “The country is with us.”

My long-controlled hatred of the Cramptons' stereotyped phrases about the Country and the House got the better of me. I showed my cloven hoof to my friends for the first time.

“We don't respect the Country as we used to do,” I said. “We haven't the same belief we used to have in the will of the people. It's no good, Crampton, trying to keep that up. We Liberals know as a matter of fact--nowadays every one knows--that the monster that brought us into power has, among other deficiencies, no head. We've got to give it one--if possible with brains and a will. That lies in the future. For the present if the country is with us, it means merely that we happen to have hold of its tether.”

Lewis was shocked. A “mandate” from the Country was sacred to his system of pretences.

Britten wasn't subdued by his first rebuff; presently he was at us again. There were several attempts to check his outbreak of interrogation; I remember the Cramptons asked questions about the welfare of various cousins of Lewis who were unknown to the rest of us, and Margaret tried to engage Britten in a sympathetic discussion of the Arts and Crafts exhibition. But Britten and Esmeer were persistent, Mrs. Millingham was mischievous, and in the end our rising hopes of Young Liberalism took to their thickets for good, while we talked all over them of the prevalent vacuity of political intentions. Margaret was perplexed by me. It is only now I perceive just how perplexing I must have been. “Of course, she said with that faint stress of apprehension in her eyes, one must have aims.” And, “it isn't always easy to put everything into phrases.” “Don't be long,” said Mrs. Edward Crampton to her husband as the wives trooped out. And afterwards when we went upstairs I had an indefinable persuasion that the ladies had been criticising Britten's share in our talk in an altogether unfavourable spirit. Mrs. Edward evidently thought him aggressive and impertinent, and Margaret with a quiet firmness that brooked no resistance, took him at once into a corner and showed him Italian photographs by Coburn. We dispersed early.

I walked with Britten along the Chelsea back streets towards Battersea Bridge--he lodged on the south side.

“Mrs. Millingham's a dear,” he began.

“She's a dear.”

“I liked her demand for a hansom because a four-wheeler was too safe.”

“She was worked up,” I said. “She's a woman of faultless character, but her instincts, as Altiora would say, are anarchistic--when she gives them a chance.”

“So she takes it out in hansom cabs.”

“Hansom cabs.”