第21章

Such awful coarse-grained people!I know more about them than you do,which you forget,and if Charles had taken you that motor drive--well,you'd have reached the house a perfect wreck.Oh,Margaret,you don't know what you are in for.They're all bottled up against the drawing-room window.There's Mrs.Wilcox--I've seen her.There's Paul.

There's Evie,who is a minx.There's Charles--I saw him to start with.And who would an elderly man with a moustache and a copper-coloured face be?""Mr.Wilcox,possibly."

"I knew it.And there's Mr.Wilcox."

"It's a shame to call his face copper colour,"complained Margaret."He has a remarkably good complexion for a man of his age."Mrs.Munt,triumphant elsewhere,could afford to concede Mr.Wilcox his complexion.She passed on from it to the plan of campaign that her nieces should pursue in the future.Margaret tried to stop her.

"Helen did not take the news quite as I expected,but the Wilcox nerve is dead in her really,so there's no need for plans.""It's as well to be prepared."

"No--it's as well not to be prepared."

"Because--'

Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland.

She could not explain in so many words,but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.It is necessary to prepare for an examination,or a dinner-party,or a possible fall in the price of stock:those who attempt human relations must adopt another method,or fail."Because I'd sooner risk it,"was her lame conclusion.

"But imagine the evenings,"exclaimed her aunt,pointing to the Mansions with the spout of the watering-can."Turn the electric light on her or there,and it's almost the same room.

One evening they may forget to draw their blinds down,and you'll see them;and the next,you yours,and they'll see you.Impossible to sit out on the balconies.Impossible to water the plants,or even speak.

Imagine going out of the front-door,and they come out opposite at the same moment.And yet you tell me that plans are unnecessary,and you'd rather risk it.""I hope to risk things all my life."

"Oh,Margaret,most dangerous."

"But after all,"she continued with a smile,"there's never any great risk as long as you have money.""Oh,shame!What a shocking speech!"

"Money pads the edges of things,"said Miss Schlegel.

"God help those who have none."

"But this is something quite new!"said Mrs.Munt,who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts,and was especially attracted by those that are portable.

"New for me;sensible people have acknowledged it for years.You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands.

It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence.

It's only when we see someone near us tottering that we realize all that an independent income means.Last night,when we were talking up here round the fire,I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic,and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love,but the absence of coin.""I call that rather cynical."

"So do I.But Helen and I,we ought to remember,when we are tempted to criticize others,that we are standing on these islands,and that most of the others,are down below the surface of the sea.The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love,and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer.

We rich can.Imagine the tragedy last June,if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people,and couldn't invoke railways and motor-cars to part them.""That's more like Socialism,"said Mrs.Munt suspiciously.