the evening after his wife had had this glimpse into sir isaac's mental processes he telephoned that charterson and horatio blenker were coming home to dinner with him. neither lady charterson nor mrs. blenker were to be present; it was to be a business conversation and not a social occasion, and lady harman he desired should wear her black and gold with just a touch of crimson in her hair. charterson wanted a word or two with the flexible horatio on sugar at the london docks, and sir isaac had some vague ideas that a turn might be given to the public judgment upon the waitresses' strike, by a couple of horatio's thoughtful yet gentlemanly articles. and in addition charterson seemed to have something else upon his mind; he did not tell as much to sir isaac but he was weighing the possibilities of securing a controlling share in the daily spirit, which simply didn't know at present where it was upon the sugar business, and of installing horatio's brother, adolphus, as its editor. he wanted to form some idea from horatio of what adolphus might expect before he approached adolphus.
lady harman wore the touch of crimson in her hair as her husband had desired, and the table was decorated simply with a big silver bowl of crimson roses. a slight shade of apprehension in sir isaac's face changed to approval at the sight of her obedience. after all perhaps she was beginning to see the commonsense of her position.
charterson struck her as looking larger, but then whenever she saw him he struck her as looking larger. he enveloped her hand in a large amiable paw for a minute and asked after the children with gusto. the large teeth beneath his discursive moustache gave him the effect of a perennial smile to which his asymmetrical ears added a touch of waggery. he always betrayed a fatherly feeling towards her as became a man who was married to a handsome wife old enough to be her mother. even when he asked about the children he did it with something of the amused knowingness of assured seniority, as if indeed he knew all sorts of things about the children that she couldn't as yet even begin to imagine. and though he confined his serious conversation to the two other men, he would ever and again show himself mindful of her and throw her some friendly enquiry, some quizzically puzzling remark. blenker as usual treated her as if she were an only very indistinctly visible presence to whom an effusive yet inattentive politeness was due. he was clearly nervous almost to the pitch of jumpiness. he knew he was to be spoken to about the sugar business directly he saw charterson, and he hated being spoken to about the sugar business. he had his code of honour. of course one had to make concessions to one's proprietors, but he could not help feeling that if only they would consent to see his really quite obvious gentlemanliness more clearly it would be better for the paper, better for the party, better for them, far better for himself. he wasn't altogether a fool about that sugar; he knew how things lay. they ought to trust him more. his nervousness betrayed itself in many little ways. he crumbled his bread constantly until, thanks to snagsby's assiduous replacement, he had made quite a pile of crumbs, he dropped his glasses in the soup—a fine occasion for snagsby's sang-froid—and he forgot not to use a fish knife with the fish as lady grove directs and tried when he discovered his error to replace it furtively on the table cloth. moreover he kept on patting the glasses on his nose—after snagsby had whisked his soup plate away, rescued, wiped and returned them to him—until that feature glowed modestly at such excesses of attention, and the soup and sauces and things bothered his fine blond moustache unusually. so that mr. blenker what with the glasses, the napkin, the food and the things seemed as restless as a young sparrow. lady harman did her duties as hostess in the quiet key of her sombre dress, and until the conversation drew her out into unexpected questionings she answered rather than talked, and she did not look at her husband once throughout the meal.
at first the talk was very largely charterson. he had no intention of coming to business with blenker until lady harman had given place to the port and the man's nerves were steadier. he spoke of this and that in the large discursive way men use in clubs, and it was past the fish before the conversation settled down upon the topic of business organization and sir isaac, a little warmed by champagne, came out of the uneasily apprehensive taciturnity into which he had fallen in the presence of his wife. horatio blenker was keenly interested in the idealization of commercial syndication, he had been greatly stirred by a book of mr. gerald stanley lee's called inspired millionaires which set out to show just what magnificent airs rich men might give themselves, and he had done his best to catch its tone and to find inspired millionaires in sir isaac and charterson and to bring it to their notice and to the notice of the readers of the old country gazette. he felt that if only sir isaac and charterson would see getting rich as a great creative act it would raise their tone and his tone and the tone of the old country gazette tremendously. it wouldn't of course materially alter the methods or policy of the paper but it would make them all feel nobler, and blenker was of that finer clay that does honestly want to feel nobler. he hated pessimism and all that criticism and self-examination that makes weak men pessimistic, he wanted to help weak men and be helped himself, he was all for that school of optimism that would have each dunghill was a well-upholstered throne, and his nervous, starry contributions to the talk were like patches of water ranunculuses trying to flower in the overflow of a sewer.
because you know it is idle to pretend that the talk of charterson and sir isaac wasn't a heavy flow of base ideas; they hadn't even the wit to sham very much about their social significance. they cared no more for the growth, the stamina, the spirit of the people whose lives they dominated than a rat cares for the stability of the house it gnaws. they wanted a broken-spirited people. they were in such relations wilfully and offensively stupid, and i do not see why we people who read and write books should pay this stupidity merely because it is prevalent even the mild tribute of an ironical civility. charterson talked of the gathering trouble that might lead to a strike of the transport workers in london docks, and what he had to say, he said,—he repeated it several times—was, "let them strike. we're ready. the sooner they strike the better. devonport's a man and this time we'll beat 'em...."
he expanded generally on strikes. "it's a question practically whether we are to manage our own businesses or whether we're to have them managed for us. managed i say!..."
"they know nothing of course of the details of organization," said blenker, shining with intelligence and looking quickly first to the right and then to the left. "nothing."
sir isaac broke out into confirmatory matter. there was an idea in his head that this talk might open his wife's eyes to some sense of the magnitude of his commercial life, to the wonder of its scale and quality. he compared notes with charterson upon a speeding-up system for delivery vans invented by an american specialist and it made blenker flush with admiration and turn as if for sympathy to lady harman to realize how a modification in a tailboard might mean a yearly saving in wages of many thousand pounds. "the sort of thing they don't understand," he said. and then sir isaac told of some of his own little devices. he had recently taken to having the returns of percentage increase and decrease from his various districts printed on postcards and circulated monthly among the district managers, postcards endorsed with such stimulating comments in red type as "well done cardiff!" or "what ails portsmouth?"—the results had been amazingly good; "neck and neck work," he said, "everywhere"—and thence they passed to the question of confidential reports and surprise inspectors. thereby they came to the rights and wrongs of the waitress strike.
and then it was that lady harman began to take a share in the conversation.
she interjected a question. "yes," she said suddenly and her interruption was so unexpected that all three men turned their eyes to her. "but how much do the girls get a week?"
"i thought," she said to some confused explanations by blenker and charterson, "that gratuities were forbidden."
blenker further explained that most of the girls of the class sir isaac was careful to employ lived at home. their income was "supplementary."
"but what happens to the others who don't live at home, mr. blenker?" she asked.
"very small minority," said mr. blenker reassuring himself about his glasses.
"but what do they do?"
charterson couldn't imagine whether she was going on in this way out of sheer ignorance or not.
"sometimes their fines make big unexpected holes in their week's pay," she said.
sir isaac made some indistinct remark about "utter nonsense."
"it seems to me to be driving them straight upon the streets."
the phrase was susan's. its full significance wasn't at that time very clear to lady harman and it was only when she had uttered it that she realized from horatio blenker's convulsive start just what a blow she had delivered at that table. his glasses came off again. he caught them and thrust them back, he seemed to be holding his nose on, holding his face on, preserving those carefully arranged features of himself from hideous revelations; his free hand made weak movements with his dinner napkin. he seemed to be holding it in reserve against the ultimate failure of his face. charterson surveyed her through an immense pause open-mouthed; then he turned his large now frozen amiability upon his host. "these are awful questions," he gasped, "rather beyond us don't you think?" and then magnificently; "harman, things are looking pretty queer in the far east again. i'm told there are chances—of revolution—even in pekin...."
lady harman became aware of snagsby's arm and his steady well-trained breathing beside her as, tenderly almost but with a regretful disapproval, he removed her plate....
8
if lady harman had failed to remark at the time the deep impression her words had made upon her hearers, she would have learnt it later from the extraordinary wrath in which sir isaac, as soon as his guests had departed, visited her. he was so angry he broke the seal of silence he had set upon his lips. he came raging into the pink bedroom through the paper-covered door as if they were back upon their old intimate footing. he brought a flavour of cigars and manly refreshment with him, his shirt front was a little splashed and crumpled and his white face was variegated with flushed patches.
"what ever d'you mean," he cried, "by making a fool of me in front of those fellers?... what's my business got to do with you?"
lady harman was too unready for a reply.
"i ask you what's my business got to do with you? it's my affair, my side. you got no more right to go shoving your spoke into that than—anything. see? what do you know of the rights and wrongs of business? how can you tell what's right and what isn't right? and the things you came out with—the things you came out with! why charterson—after you'd gone charterson said, she doesn't know, she can't know what she's talking about! a decent woman! a lady! talking of driving girls on the street. you ought to be ashamed of yourself! you aren't fit to show your face.... it's these damned papers and pamphlets, all this blear-eyed stuff, these decadent novels and things putting narsty thoughts, narsty dirty thoughts into decent women's heads. it ought to be rammed back down their throats, it ought to be put a stop to!"
sir isaac suddenly gave way to woe. "what have i done?" he cried, "what have i done? here's everything going so well! we might be the happiest of couples! we're rich, we got everything we want.... and then you go harbouring these ideas, fooling about with rotten people, taking up with socialism——yes, i tell you—socialism!"
his moment of pathos ended. "no?" he shouted in an enormous voice.
he became white and grim. he emphasized his next words with a shaken finger.
"it's got to end, my lady. it's going to end sooner than you expect. that's all!..."
he paused at the papered door. he had a popular craving for a vivid curtain and this he felt was just a little too mild.
"it's going to end," he repeated and then with great violence, with almost alcoholic violence, with the round eyes and shouting voice and shaken fist and blaspheming violence of a sordid, thrifty peasant enraged, "it's going to end a damned sight sooner than you expect."
