The next morning she sought Bridgit, having ascertained by telephone that her friend was alone. The Hon. Mrs. Herbert, although “masculine” only in so far as Nature had endowed her with a strong positive mind and character, physical and mental courage, and a disdain of all pettiness (the hypothetical masculine ideal), thought boudoirs silly, and called her personal room in South Audley Street a den. Not that it in the least resembled a man’s den. It was a long and narrow room on the first floor at the back of the house, and furnished with deep chairs and sofas covered with flowered chintzes, and several good pieces of Sheraton. She was known for her fine collection of remarque etchings, and the best of them were in this room. The large table was set out with reviews and new books, which she bought on principle, although she found time for little more than a glance at their contents. Her cigarette-box was of elaborately chased silver. Good a sportswoman as she was, she was not in the least “sporty,” being too well balanced and well bred to assume a pose of any sort. She was a woman of the world with many tastes, who was destined to have a good many more.
When Ishbel entered, she was walking up and down, her hands clasped behind her, her heavy black brows drawn above the brooding darkness below. She, too, was in an unenviable frame of mind.
Her brows relaxed as she saw Ishbel. “What on earth is the matter?” she exclaimed.
Ishbel, who had not slept but was quite calm, sat down and told her story.
“I don’t suppose you quite understand how I feel,” she concluded; “for you have always had your own fortune, have never even been dependent on your father. But of one thing I am positive: if you found yourself in my position, you would feel exactly as I do. So I have come to you to talk it out.”
“Of course I understand.” Bridgit turned her back and walked to the end of the room. She longed to add: “It is quite as humiliating to keep a husband as to be kept by one; rather worse, as tradition and instincts don’t sanction it.” But there are some things that cannot be said, save, indeed, through the offices of the pineal gland; and as Bridgit, on her return march, paused and looked down upon Ishbel, standing in an attitude of rigid defiance, with quivering, nostrils and fierce half-closed eyes, possibly her friend received a telepathic flash, for she exclaimed impulsively:?—
“You are in trouble, too. What is it?”
“Trouble is a fine general term for my ailment. I’m merely disgusted, dissatisfied—on general principles. Possibly it’s the effect of reading Nigel’s book.”
“I haven’t had time to read it, but I’m so happy it has created a furore, and hope he’ll come back to be lionized. Odd he should write about the slums.”
“Not at all. The slums are always being discovered by bright young men, who, with the true ardor of the explorer, proceed to enlighten the world. Nigel—the story’s not up to much—but he has the genius of expression, and, having made the amazing discovery of poverty, communicates his own amazement that it should have continued to exist in civilized countries up to the eve of the twentieth century—and his horror at its forms. Some of his scenes are quite awfully vivid. But he’s no sentimentalist; he doesn’t call for more charities; he doesn’t even pity the poor; he despises them as they deserve to be despised for being poor, for their asininity in permitting and enduring. But he demands in their name, since the best of them are wholly incompetent as thinkers, that the educated shall favor a form of Socialism which shall not only provide remunerative employment for them, but compel them to work—grinding the idle, the worthless, the vicious to the wall, and training the new generation to annihilate poverty. Great heaven! What a disgrace it is—that poverty—to the individual, to the world, to the poor, to the rich. I never realized it until I read that book. Other ‘discoverers’ have put my back up. But Nigel is one of us; and when he sees it—and what a clear vision he has?—”
“How splendid!” cried Ishbel, also forgetting her own trouble for the moment. “And to be able to write like that will help him to forget Julia—must make all personal affairs seem insignificant. Would that we all had such a solace!”
“Solace! We are both strong enough to scorn the word. But having been awakened, I should have no excuse if I went to sleep again. Nor you. I haven’t made up my mind what I’ll do yet, merely that I’ll do something. I’m sick of society. It’s a bally grind. Five years of it are enough for any woman with brains instead of porridge in her skull. I’m glad you’ve had a shock about the same time—should have administered it ............