第45章

The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure,and when they were both full of the same subject,there were few dinner-parties that could stand up against them.This particular one,which was all ladies,had more kick in it than most,but succumbed after a struggle.Helen at one part of the table,Margaret at the other,would talk of Mr.Bast and of no one else,and somewhere about the entree their monologues collided,fell ruining,and became common property.Nor was this all.

The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club;there was a paper after it,read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general interest.After the paper came a debate,and in this debate Mr.Bast also figured,appearing now as a bright spot in civilization,now as a dark spot,according to the temperament of the speaker.The subject of the paper had been,"How ought I to dispose of my money?"the reader professing to be a millionaire on the point of death,inclined to bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries,but open to conviction from other sources.

The various parts had been assigned beforehand,and some of the speeches were amusing.The hostess assumed the ungrateful role of "the millionaire's eldest son,"and implored her expiring parent not to dislocate Society by allowing such vast sums to pass out of the family.Money was the fruit of self-denial,and the second generation had a right to profit by the self-denial of the first.What right had "Mr.Bast"to profit?

The National Gallery was good enough for the likes of him.After property had had its say--a saying that is necessarily ungracious--the various philanthropists stepped forward.Something must be done for "Mr.Bast":his conditions must be improved without impairing his independence;he must have a free library,or free tennis-courts;his rent must be paid in such a way that he did not know it was being paid;it must be made worth his while to join the Territorials;he must be forcibly parted from his uninspiring wife,the money going to her as compensation;he must be assigned a Twin Star,some member of the leisured classes who would watch over him ceaselessly (groans from Helen);he must be given food but no clothes,clothes but no food,a third-return ticket to Venice,without either food or clothes when he arrived there.In short,he might be given anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.

And here Margaret interrupted.

"Order,order,Miss Schlegel!"said the reader of the paper."You are here,I understand,to advise me in the interests of the Society for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.I cannot have you speaking out of your role.It makes my poor head go round,and I think you forget that I am very ill.""Your head won't go round if only you'll listen to my argument,"said Margaret."Why not give him the money itself.

You're supposed to have about thirty thousand a year.""Have I?I thought I had a million."

"Wasn't a million your capital?Dear me!

we ought to have settled that.Still,it doesn't matter.Whatever you've got,I order you to give as many poor men as you can three hundred a year each.""But that would be pauperizing them,"said an earnest girl,who liked the Schlegels,but thought them a little unspiritual at times.

"Not if you gave them so much.A big windfall would not pauperize a man.It is these little driblets,distributed among too many,that do the harm.Money's educational.It's far more educational than the things it buys."There was a protest.

"In a sense,"added Margaret,but the protest continued."Well,isn't the most civilized thing going,the man who has learnt to wear his income properly?""Exactly what your Mr.Basts won't do."

"Give them a chance.Give them money.

Don't dole them out poetry-books and railway-tickets like babies.

Give them the wherewithal to buy these things.When your Socialism comes it may be different,and we may think in terms of commodities instead of cash.Till it comes give people cash,for it is the warp of civilization,whatever the woof may be.The imagination ought to play upon money and realize it vividly,for it's the--the second most important thing in the world.It is so sluffed over and hushed up,there is so little clear thinking--oh,political economy,of course,but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes,and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of independent means.Money:give Mr.Bast money,and don't bother about his ideals.He'll pick up those for himself."She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to misconstrue her.The female mind,though cruelly practical in daily life,cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation,and Miss Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things,and what it would profit Mr.Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul.She answered,"Nothing,but he would not gain his soul until he had gained a little of the world."Then they said,"No they did not believe it,"and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul in the superterrestrial sense,where the effort will be taken for the deed,but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this world,will ever know the rarer joys of the body,or attain to clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows.Others had attacked the fabric of Society-Property,Interest,etc.;she only fixed her eyes on a few human beings,to see how,under present conditions,they could be made happier.Doing good to humanity was useless:the many-coloured efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in an universal grey.To do good to one,or,as in this case,to a few,was the utmost she dare hope for.