“I suggested it, but there was a long discussion about that. The clergy, desirous to immortalise their union with other churches, were anxious to call it the Palace of Scientific Religion; the bigwigs of the old War Office, who have become more pacific than the Little Englanders of our past civilisation, insisted that the place should be named the Palace of Bloodless Victories.”
“Then what did you do to bring them round to your way of thinking?”
“My dear man, I did not bring them round at all; they gradually came round of their own accord, when they realised that happiness was our aim, and that all our efforts were but means to that end.”
“Strange people you are,” thoughtfully remarked Victor.
“Never has man been so thoroughly disciplined, my dear Victor, or so free to develop his faculties to the utmost, as since he voluntarily gave up the attempt to dominate his fellows.”
“All the positivists, past and present, have preached that felonious doctrine,” said Victor, shrugging his shoulders. “Even your great Herbert Spencer—who was what one may call a pessimistic reformer—owned that before man could realise a perfect state of freedom, he would have to master the passions which give a bias to all his actions, and render him powerless to create a social Utopia. May this blissful state of things continue, and may the Seer find your hearts as pure as newborn babes when he turns his searchlight on to you.”
“There is no fear of that, dear Victor; London has been going through mental gymnastics for a few weeks, and you could not find one creature that did not harbour the purest intentions. Even that uninteresting couple, the Mowbrays, have not in their whole composition a grain of malice, although they started late in their career of reform.”
The Palace of Happiness opened next day, on what Londoners were formerly wont to call Goodwood Day. Thousands and thousands marching in perfect order entered the hall, and seated themselves on the benches which had been erected one above the other and reached right up to the gallery. At one end of the hall, on a marble platform raised three feet from the ground, Lionel and Gwen, Sinclair and Eva, with many others who formed part of the committee, were reclining on couches. Victor de Laumel sat discreetly behind the Somervilles, for they had hinted to their Parisian friend that his presence might attract the attention of the public and put it out of humour against the whole performance. Lionel kept saying that until this ceremony was over they were not out of the wood, and could not say positively that John Bull had been won over.
