It is all printed in the vividest way as a picture upon my memory,
so that were I a painter I think I could give the deep rich browns
and warm greys beyond the brightly lit table, the various
distinguished faces, strongly illuminated, interested and keen,
above the black and white of evening dress, the alert menservants
with their heavier, clean-shaved faces indistinctly seen in the
dimness behind. Then this was coloured emotionally for me by my
aching sense of loss and sacrifice, and by the chance trend of our
talk to the breaches and unrealities of the civilised scheme. We
seemed a little transitory circle of light in a universe of darkness
and violence; an effect to which the diminishing smell of burning
rubber, the trampling of feet overhead, the swish of water, added
enormously. Everybody-unless, perhaps, it was Evesham-drank
rather carelessly because of the suppressed excitement of our
situation, and talked the louder and more freely.
"But what a flimsy thing our civilisation is!" said Evesham; "a mere
thin net of habits and associations!"
"I suppose those men came back," said Wilkins.
"Lady Paskershortly did!" chuckled Evesham.
"How do they fit it in with the rest of their lives?" Wilkins
speculated. "I suppose there's Pekin-stained police officers,
Pekin-stained J. P.'s-trying petty pilferers in the severest
manner."…
Then for a time things became preposterous. There was a sudden
cascade of water by the fireplace, and then absurdly the ceiling
began to rain upon us, first at this point and then that. "My new
suit!" cried some one. "Perrrrrr-up pe-rr"-a new vertical line of
blackened water would establish itself and form a spreading pool
upon the gleaming cloth. The men nearest would arrange catchment
areas of plates and flower bowls. "Draw up!" said Tarvrille, "draw
up. That's the bad end of the table!" He turned to the
imperturbable butler. "Take round bath towels," he said; and
presently the men behind us were offering-with inflexible dignity-
"Port wine, Sir. Bath towel, Sir!" Waulsort, with streaks of
blackened water on his forehead, was suddenly reminded of a wet year
when he had followed the French army manoeuvres. An animated
dispute sprang up between him and Neal about the relative efficiency
of the new French and German field guns. Wrassleton joined in and a
little drunken shrivelled Oxford don of some sort with a black-
splashed shirt front who presently silenced them all by the
immensity and particularity of his knowledge of field artillery.
Then the talk drifted to Sedan and the effect of dead horses upon
drinking-water, which brought Wrassleton and Weston Massinghay into
a dispute of great vigour and emphasis. "The trouble in South
Africa," said Weston Massinghay, "wasn't that we didn't boil our
water. It was that we didn't boil our men. The Boers drank the
same stuff we did. THEY didn't get dysentery."
That argument went on for some time. I was attacked across the
table by a man named Burshort about my Endowment of Motherhood
schemes, but in the gaps of that debate I could still hear Weston
Massinghay at intervals repeat in a rather thickened voice: "THEY
didn't get dysentery."
I think Evesham went early. The rest of us clustered more and more
closely towards the drier end of the room, the table was pushed
along, and the area beneath the extinguished conflagration abandoned
to a tinkling, splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and
baths. Everybody was now disposed to be hilarious and noisy, to say
startling and aggressive things; we must have sounded a queer
clamour to a listener in the next room. The devil inspired them to
begin baiting me. "Ours isn't the Tory party any more," said
Burshort. "Remington has made it the Obstetric Party."
"That's good!" said Weston Massinghay, with all his teeth gleaming;
"I shall use that against you in the House!"
"I shall denounce you for abusing private confidences if you do,"
said Tarvrille.
"Remington wants us to give up launching Dreadnoughts and launch
babies instead," Burshort urged. "For the price of one Dreadnought-"
The little shrivelled don who had been omniscient about guns joined
in the baiting, and displayed himself a venomous creature.
Something in his eyes told me he knew Isabel and hated me for it.
"Love and fine thinking," he began, a little thickly, and knocking
over a wine-glass with a too easy gesture. "Love and fine thinking.
Two things don't go together. No philosophy worth a damn ever came
out of excesses of love. Salt Lake City-Piggott-Ag-Agapemone
again-no works to matter."
Everybody laughed.
"Got to rec'nise these facts," said my assailant. "Love and fine
think'n pretty phrase-attractive. Suitable for p'litical
dec'rations. Postcard, Christmas, gilt lets, in a wreath of white
flow's. Not oth'wise valu'ble."
I made some remark, I forget what, but he overbore me.
Real things we want are Hate-Hate and COARSE think'n. I b'long to
the school of Mrs. F's Aunt-"
"What?" said some one, intent.
"In 'Little Dorrit,'" explained Tarvrille; "go on!"
"Hate a fool," said my assailant.