"Of course it shows you," exclaimed Sheila, "what a heartless great place it is. All 'the world' goes out of town, and 'London's empty!' But if you weren't told so you'd never know the difference."
Derek muttered: "I think it shows more than that."
Under the table Flora was touching John's foot warningly; Nedda attempting to touch Derek's; Felix endeavoring to catch John's eye;
Alan trying to catch Sheila's; John biting his lip and looking carefully at nothing. Only Frances Freeland was smiling and gazing lovingly at dear Derek, thinking he would be so handsome when he had grown a nice black moustache. And she said:
"Yes, dear. What were you going to say?"
Derek looked up.
"Do you really want it, Granny?"
Nedda murmured across the table: "No, Derek."
Frances Freeland raised her brows quizzically. She almost looked arch.
"But of course I do, darling. I want to hear immensely. It's so interesting."
"Derek was going to say, Mother"--every one at once looked at Felix, who had thus broken in--"that all we West-End people--John and I and Flora and Stanley, and even you--all we people born in purple and fine linen, are so accustomed to think we're all that matters, that when we're out of London there's nobody in it. He meant to say that this is appalling enough, but that what is still more appalling is the fact that we really ARE all that matters, and that if people try to disturb us, we can, and jolly well will, take care they don't disturb us long. Is that what you meant, Derek?"
Derek turned a rather startled look on Felix.
"What he meant to say," went on Felix, "was, that age and habit, vested interests, culture and security sit so heavy on this country's chest, that aspiration may wriggle and squirm but will never get from under. That, for all we pretend to admire enthusiasm and youth, and the rest of it, we push it out of us just a little faster than it grows up. Is that what you meant, Derek?"
"You'll try to, but you won't succeed!"
"I'm afraid we shall, and with a smile, too, so that you won't see us doing it."
"I call that devilish."
"I call it natural. Look at a man who's growing old; notice how very gracefully and gradually he does it. Take my hair--your aunt says she can't tell the difference from month to month. And there it is, or rather isn't--little by little."
Frances Freeland, who during Felix's long speech had almost closed her eyes, opened them, and looked piercingly at the top of his head.
"Darling," she said, "I've got the very thing for it. You must take some with you when you go tonight. John is going to try it."
Checked in the flow of his philosophy, Felix blinked like an owl surprised.
"Mother," he said, "YOU only have the gift of keeping young."
"Oh! my dear, I'm getting dreadfully old. I have the greatest difficulty in keeping awake sometimes when people are talking. But I mean to fight against it. It's so dreadfully rude, and ugly, too; I catch myself sometimes with my mouth open."
Flora said quietly: "Granny, I have the very best thing for that--quite new!"
A sweet but rather rueful smile passed over Frances Freeland's face. "Now," she said, "you're chaffing me," and her eyes looked loving.
It is doubtful if John understood the drift of Felix's exordium, it is doubtful if he had quite listened--he having so much to not listen to at the Home Office that the practice was growing on him.
A vested interest to John was a vested interest, culture was culture, and security was certainly security--none of them were symbols of age. Further, the social question--at least so far as it had to do with outbreaks of youth and enthusiasm--was too familiar to him to have any general significance whatever. What with women, labor people, and the rest of it, he had no time for philosophy--a dubious process at the best. A man who had to get through so many daily hours of real work did not dissipate his energy in speculation. But, though he had not listened to Felix's remarks, they had ruffled him. There is no philosophy quite so irritating as that of a brother! True, no doubt, that the country was in a bad way, but as to vested interests and security, that was all nonsense! The guilty causes were free thought and industrialism.
Having seen them all off to Hampstead, he gave his mother her good-night kiss. He was proud of her, a wonderful woman, who always put a good face on everything! Even her funny way of always having some new thing or other to do you good--even that was all part of her wanting to make the best of things. She never lost her 'form'!
John worshipped that kind of stoicism which would die with its head up rather than live with its tail down. Perhaps the moment of which he was most proud in all his life was that, when, at the finish of his school mile, he overheard a vulgar bandsman say: "I like that young ----'s running; he breathes through his ---- nose."
At that moment, if he had stooped to breathe through his mouth, he must have won; as it was he had lost in great distress and perfect form.
