“Plenty of news, gentlemen. First of all, the Bishop of Sunbury—”
“Oh! my old prelate of the Islington Tournament? Excuse me, Dan, for interrupting you.”
“Yes, my lord, the very same—has decided to preach a sermon at St Paul’s on the new Society he is organising.”
“It is a profound secret, my lord,” answered Dick as he bowed courteously.
“Well, mind you tell me when it comes off,” said Lionel.
“Still no news of the war, Danford?” broke in Lord Mowbray, the amateur mimic.
“How can there be when we receive no letters. Perhaps the War Office has important wires from the seat of war, although it has not communicated them to the public. But it is strange how little the war has affected Society; the heavy blows that have fallen on nearly everyone in your circles have arrived very much softened by distance; and it seems really as if the whole tragedy were being acted in some other planet. Besides which, has not college and home life taught well-bred people to bear with fortitude all mishaps and sorrow? Civilisation is a thick ice which covers the current rushing beneath it; you must wait for a crack on the surface, to be able to notice which way runs the stream.”
“I suppose you would consider the London storm a crack on the surface, would you?” ironically inquired Sinclair, lighting a cigarette.
“By all means, Mr Sinclair, and those who have watched carefully through the crevice must have seen that, for a long time, we have been going the contrary way of the tide.”
“I do not know how it is to end—no regiments have been ordered out since our catastrophe.” This was Lord Mowbray again, who was not fond of ethics and preferred coming back to facts.
“The passing of regiments through the town would turn out a failure in our present condition,” retorted Danford. “No windows would be thrown open, no hearty cheers would rejoice the hearts of departing warriors; that excitement is over for ever—it was even on the wane before we stood as we are now. I often wonder why Society did not raise a regiment of Duchesses and Peeresses? That would have fetched the masses, and perhaps might have provoked a general surrendering of the enemy to an Amazon battalion; for certainly the novelty of the enterprise, and the incontestable beauty of the Peeresses’ physique, would do a great deal towards enlivening the old rotten game of warfare. But they missed the opportunity of putting new wine into old bottles, and now it is too late. After all, patriotism is only a question of coloured bunting: tear down the flags, and nationality will die a natural death.”