You won't mind, will you?"
The right people did come: Mrs. Denton being a personage that a landed
gentry, rendered jumpy by the perpetual explosion of new ideas under
their very feet, and casting about eagerly for friends, could not afford
to snub. A kindly, simple folk, quite intelligent, some of them, as
Phillips had surmised. Mrs. Denton made no mystery of why she had
invited them. Why should all questions be left to the politicians and
the journalists? Why should not the people interested take a hand; meet
and talk over these little matters with quiet voices and attentive ears,
amid surroundings where the unwritten law would restrain ladies and
gentlemen from addressing other ladies and gentlemen as blood-suckers or
anarchists, as grinders of the faces of the poor or as oily-tongued
rogues; arguments not really conducive to mutual understanding and the
bridging over of differences. The latest Russian dancer, the last new
musical revue, the marvellous things that can happen at golf, the curious
hands that one picks up at bridge, the eternal fox, the sacred bird!
Excellent material for nine-tenths of our conversation.
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