The speaker's forehead wrinkled, and again he moved uneasily. Rolfe regarded him with a reflective air.
'That man you saw here tonight,' Carnaby went on, 'the short, thick fellow—his name is Dando—he's just come back from Queensland. I don't quite know what he's been doing, but he evidently knows a good deal about mines. He says he has invented a new process for getting gold out of ore—I don't know anything about it. In the early days of mining, he says, no end of valuable stuff was abandoned, because they couldn't smelt it. Something about pyrites—I have a vague recollection of old chemistry lessons. Dando wants to start smelting works for his new process, somewhere in North Queensland.'
'And wants money, I dare say,' remarked the listener, with a twinkle of the eye.
'I suppose so. It was Carton that brought him here for the first time, a week ago. Might be worth thinking about, you know.'
'I have no opinion. My profound ignorance of everything keeps me in a state of perpetual scepticism. It has its advantages, I dare say.'
'You're very conservative, Rolfe, in your finance.'
'Very.'
'Quite right, no doubt. Could you join us at Nice or some such place?'
'Why, I rather thought of sticking to my books. But if the fogs are very bad—'
'And you would seriously advise us to give up the house?'
'My dear fellow, how can you hesitate? Your wife is quite right; there's not one good word to be said for the ordinary life of an English household. Flee from it! Live anywhere and anyhow, but don't keep house in England. Wherever I go, it's the same cry: domestic life is played out. There isn't a servant to be had—unless you're a Duke and breed them on your own estate. All ordinary housekeepers are at the mercy of the filth and insolence of a draggle-tailed, novelette-reading feminine democracy. Before very long we shall train an army of menservants, and send the women to the devil.'
'Queer thing, Rolfe,' put in his friend, with a laugh; 'I've noticed it of late, you're getting to be a regular woman-hater.'
'Not a bit of it. I hate a dirty, lying, incapable creature, that's all, whether man or woman. No doubt they're more common in petticoats.'
'Been to the Frothinghams' lately?'
'No.'
'I used to think you were there rather often.'
Rolfe gave a sort of grunt, and kept silence.
'To my mind,' pursued the other, 'the best thing about Alma is that she appreciates my wife. She has really a great admiration for Sibyl; no sham about it, I'm sure. I don't pretend to know much about women, but I fancy that kind of thing isn't common—real friendship and admiration between them. People always say so, at all events.'
'I take refuge once more,' said Rolfe, 'in my fathomless ignorance.'
He rose from his chair, and sat down again on a corner of the table. Carnaby stood up, threw his arms above his head, and yawned with animal vehemence, the expression of an intolerable ennui.
'There's something damnably wrong with us all—that's the one thing certain.'
'Idleness, for one thing,' said Rolfe.
'Yes. And I'm too old to do anything. Why didn't I follow Miles into the army? I think I was more cut out for that than for anything else. I often feel I should like to go to South Africa and get up a little war of my own.'
Rolfe shouted with laughter.
'Not half a bad idea, and the easiest thing in the world, no doubt.'
'Nigger-hunting; a superior big game.'
'There's more than that to do in South Africa,' said Harvey. 'I was looking at a map in Stanford's window the other day, and it amused me. Who believes for a moment that England will remain satisfied with bits here and there? We have to swallow the whole, of course. We shall go on fighting and annexing, until—until the decline and fall of the British Empire. That hasn't begun yet. Some of us are so over-civilised that it makes a reaction of wholesome barbarism in the rest. We shall fight like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse. Happily, no sooner do they get fat than they kick, and somebody's shin suffers; then they fight off the excessive flesh. War is England's Banting.'
'You'd better not talk like that to Sibyl.'
'Why, frankly, old man, I think that's your mistake. But you'll tell me, and rightly enough, to mind my own business.'
'Nonsense. What do you mean exactly? You think I ought to—'
Hugh hesitated, with an air of uneasiness.
'Well,' pursued his friend cautiously, 'do you think it's right to suppress your natural instincts? Mightn't it give her a new interest in life if she came round a little to your point of view?'
'Queer thing, how unlike we are, isn't it?' said Carnaby, with a sudden drop of his tone to amiable ingenuousness. 'But, you know; we get along together very well.'
'To be sure. Yet you are going to rust in the Riviera when you want to be on the Himalayas. Wouldn't it do your wife good to give up her books and her music for a while and taste fresh air?'
'I doubt if she's strong enough for it.'
'It would make her stronger. And here's a good opportunity. If you give up housekeeping (and housekeepers), why not reform your life altogether? Go and have a look at Australia.'
'Sibyl hates the sea.'
'She'd soon get over that. Seriously, you ought to think of it.'
Carnaby set his lips and for a moment hung his head.
'You're quite right. But—'
'A little pluck, old fellow.'
'I'll see what can be done. Have another whisky?'
They went out into the hall, where a dim light through coloured glass illumined a statue in terracotta, some huge engravings, the massive antlers of an elk, and furniture in carved oak.
'Queer feeling of emptiness,' said Carnaby, subduing his voice. 'I feel as if they'd carried off everything, and left bare walls. Sibyl couldn't stay in the place. Shall I whistle for a cab? By Jove! that reminds me, the whistle has gone; it happened to be silver. A wedding present from that fool Benson, who broke his neck in a steeplechase three weeks after.' Harvey laughed, and stepped out into the watery fog.
CHAPTER 3
A cab crawling at the upper end of the terrace took him quickly home. He entered with his latch-key as a church clock tolled one.
It was a large house, within a few minutes' walk of Royal Oak Station. Having struck a match, and lit a candle which stood upon the hall table (indicating that he was the last who would enter tonight), Harvey put up the door-chain and turned the great key, then went quietly upstairs. His rooms were on the first floor. A tenancy of five years, with long absences, enabled him to regard this niche in a characterless suburb as in some sort his home; a familiar smell of books and tobacco welcomed him as he opened the door; remnants of a good fire kept the air warm, and dispersed a pleasant glow. On shelves which almost concealed the walls, stood a respectable collection of volumes, the lowest tier consisting largely of what secondhand booksellers, when invited to purchase, are wont to call 'tomb-stones' that is to say, old folios, of no great market value, though good brains and infinite labour went to the making of them. A great table, at one end of which was a tray with glasses and a water-bottle, occupied the middle of the floor; nearer the fireplace was a small writing-desk. For pictures little space could be found;