Isabel Clarendon, Vol. II (of II). George Gissing

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СКАЧАТЬ you would allow such a scheme to be overthrown just because one of the party failed you! I can suggest half a dozen delightful people who will be happy to go with you.”

      “No doubt; but I wanted you.”

      “Robert, you are undeniably Oriental; the despotic habit still clings to you. If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, neither does one day’s hunting make an Englishman.”

      His countenance cleared.

      “Well,” he said, “this is certainly not final. Let us wait till that wedding is over.”

      “It is final,” she returned, very positively. “The wedding will not in the least alter things.”

      “What then are you going to do?” he asked, with deliberation, gazing at her steadily.

      Her eyes fell, and she seemed half to resent his persistence, as she answered:

      “I am going to live on three hundred a year.”

      “H’m! Do you think of living in London?”

      “No; I do not think of living in London. Proceed, sir, with the cross-examination.”

      “I think I have been rude enough for one day,” he returned, with a quiet smile as he rose from his chair.

      She held her hand to him with the friendly grace which could repay even when it disappointed.

      “Thank you, with all my heart,” she said. “Only—remember how dear independence must be to me.”

      “Are you acquainted with Mr. Lyster?” Robert asked, with a transition to easier topics.

      “I don’t think I know any one of that name.”

      “Some one who arrived here a few minutes after I did. It seems we came in the same train.”

      “To be sure; a friend the Strattons were expecting. Shall we go to the drawingroom?”

      There they found the gentleman in question conversing with Mrs. Stratton, a man of smooth appearance and fluent speech. His forte seemed to be politics, on which subject he discoursed continuously during luncheon. There happened to be diplomatic difficulties with Russia, and Mr. Lyster—much concerned, by-the-bye, with Indian commerce—was emphatic in denunciation of Slavonic craft and treachery, himself taking the stand-point of disinterested honesty, of principle in politics.

      “We shall have to give those fellows a licking yet,” remarked Colonel Stratton, with confidence inspired by professional feeling.

      “I should think so, indeed!” put in Frank Stratton, the eldest son. The two schoolboys had by this time returned to their football, and only the representatives of Woolwich and Sandhurst remained to grace the family table. “And the sooner the better.”

      “What I want to know,” exclaimed Mr. Lyster, “is whether England is a civilising power or not. If so, it is our duty to go to war; if not, of course we may prepare to go to the–”

      “Don’t hesitate, Mr. Lyster,” said Mrs. Stratton good-naturedly, “I’m sure we all agree with you.”

      “Civilisation!” proceeded the politician, when the laugh had subsided; “that is what England represents, and civilisation rests upon a military basis, if it has any basis at all. It’s all very well to talk about the humanity of arbitration and fudge of that kind; it only postpones the evil day. Our position is the result of good, hard fighting, and mere talking won’t keep it up; we must fight again. Too long a peace means loss of prestige, and loss of prestige means the encroachment of barbarians, who are only to be kept in order by repeated thrashings. They forget that we are a civilising power; unfortunately we are too much disposed to forget it ourselves.”

      “The mistake is,” remarked Frank Stratton, “to treat with those fellows at all. Why don’t we take a map of Asia and draw a line just where it seems good to us, and bid the dogs keep on their own side of it? Of course they wouldn’t do so—and then we lick’em!”

      His mother looked at him with pride.

      “I respect our constitution,” pursued Mr. Lyster, who was too much absorbed in his own rhetoric to pay much attention to the frivolous remarks of others; “but I’ve often thought it wouldn’t be amiss if we could have a British Bizmarck”—so he pronounced the name. “A Bizmarck would make short work with Radical humbug. He would keep up patriotism; he would remind us of our duties as a civilising power.”

      “And he’d establish conscription,” remarked Frank. “That’s what we want.”

      “Eh? Conscription? Well, I won’t go quite so far as that. It is one of our English glories that there are always men ready to volunteer for active service; men who are prepared to fight and, if need be, to die for their country. I shouldn’t like to see that altered. I think the voluntary system a good one. We are Englishmen; we don’t need to be driven to battle.”

      Robert Asquith glanced at Isabel and smiled.

      The weather was so bad in the afternoon that it was impossible to leave the house. The two young Strattons went to try and break each other’s heads at single-stick; the colonel, with his guests, repaired to the billiard-room, where they smoked, talked, and handled the cues. Asquith was not quite in the mood for billiards. When he had played with the colonel for half an hour, Mr. Lyster took his place, and he strolled round the room, examining the guns, cricket-bats, horse-whips, and pictures, which invited observation. Going to one of the seats to repose himself, he found a book lying close by on the floor, open leaves downwards, just as it had fallen. It was one of Captain Marryat’s novels. Robert threw up his legs on to the couch, and began to read.

      Our friend was anything but a man of literary tastes; with the exception of purchases at railway stations, it is doubtful whether he had ever bought a book in his life. He read newspapers assiduously; they satisfied his need of mental pabulum. For the rest, he made the world his book, and had the faculty of extracting amusement from it in sufficient quantities to occupy his leisure time. He was anything but an ignorant man; conversation, and the haphazard experiences of life, had supplied him in a living way with knowledge which ordinarily has to be sought from the printed page; but intellectual tendencies, properly speaking, he had none. Art he only cared for in the elementary way; for music, he plainly confessed he had no ear. On men and manners, he habitually reflected, and had fair natural power of insight; problems of life were non-existent for him.

      The story which he had picked up absorbed him; he read on and on with a boy’s simple enjoyment. His body rested in a corner of the seat, his legs were stretched at full length, one over the other, he held the book up in both hands; often he laughed aloud, and at other times his face wore an expression of the gravest interest. The billiard players had passed out of his world.

      When at length he put down the book, he found himself alone in the room. He jumped up, flung the book on to the green table, yawned, stretched his arms, slapped his legs to restore circulation, and walked to the window. It was growing dark. In the leafless garden the rain fell steadily; occasionally drops made their way down the chimney, and hissed upon the fire. Robert had the feeling of one who awakes after dissipation, a debauched and untidy sensation. He felt the necessity of plunging his face in water.

      Having done so, he made his way to the drawing-room. Visitors were not to be expected such an afternoon as this, and at first he thought the room was empty. But Mrs. Stratton was sitting with her back to him; the ruffling of a newspaper she held apprised him of her presence.

      “So СКАЧАТЬ