"Slums are one's chief interest," said Gerald; "but no doubt it will soon be the same story over and over, and only make one wish-"
"What?"
"That there could be a revolution before I am of age."
"What's that?" cried Primrose, coming up as he spoke. "A revolution?"
"Yes, guillotines and all, to cut off your head in Rotherwood Park," said Gerald lightly.
"Oh! you don't really mean it."
"Not that sort," said Dolores. "Only the coming of the coquecigrues."
"They are in 'The Water Babies'," said Primrose, mystified.
Each of those two liked to talk to the other as a sort of fellow- captive, solacing themselves with discussions over the 'Censor' and its fellows. Love is not often the first thought, even where it lurks in modern intellectual intercourse between man and maid; and though Kitty Varley might giggle, the others thought the idea only worthy of her. Aunt Jane, however, smelt out the notion, and could not but communicate it to her sister, though adding-
"I don't believe in it: Dolores is in love with Physiology, and the boy with what Jasper calls Socialist maggots, but not with each other, unless they work round in some queer fashion."
However, Lady Merrifield, feeling herself accountable for Dolores, was anxious to gather ideas about Gerald from his aunt, with whom she was becoming more and more intimate. She was more than twenty years the senior, and the thread of connection was very slender, but they suited one another so well that they had become Lilias and Geraldine to one another. Lady Merrifield had preserved her youthfulness chiefly from having had a happy home, unbroken by family sorrows or carking cares, and with a husband who had always taken his full share of responsibility.
"Your nephew's production has made a stir," said she, when they found themselves alone together.
"Yes, poor boy." Then answering the tone rather than the words, "I suppose it is the lot of one generation to be startled by the next. There is a good deal of change in the outlook."
"Yes," said Lady Merrifield. "The young ones, especially the youngest, seem to have a set of notions of their own that I cannot always follow."
"Exactly," said Geraldine eagerly.
"You feel the same? To begin with, the laws of young ladyhood- maidenliness-are a good deal relaxed-"
"There I am not much of a judge. I never had any young ladyhood, but I own that the few times I went out with Anna I have been surprised, and more surprised at what I heard from her sister Emily."
"What we should have thought simply shocking being tolerated now."
"Just so; and we are viewed as old duennas for not liking it. I should say, however, that it is not, or has not, been a personal trouble with me. Anna's passion is for her Uncle Clement, and she has given up the season on his account, though Lady Travis Underwood was most anxious to have her; and as to Emily, though she is obliged to go out sometimes, she hates it, and has a soul set on slums and nursing."
"You mean that the style of gaieties revolts a nice-minded girl?"
"Partly. Perhaps such as the Travis Underwoods used to take part in, rather against their own likings, poor things, are much less restrained for the young people than what would come in your daughters' way."
"Perhaps; though Lady Rotherwood has once or twice in country-houses had to protect her daughter, to the great disgust of the other young people. That is one development that it is hard to meet, for it is difficult to know where old-fashioned distaste is the motive, and where the real principle of modesty. Though to me the question is made easy, for Sir Jasper would never hear of cricket for his daughters, scarcely of hunting, and we have taken away Valetta and Primrose from the dancing-classes since skirt-dancing has come in; but I fear Val thinks it hard."
"Such things puzzle my sisters at Vale Leston. They are part of the same spirit of independence that sends girls to hospitals or medical schools."
"Or colleges, or lecturing. Dolores is wild to lecture, and I see no harm in her trying her wings at the High School on some safe subject, if her father in New Zealand does not object, though I am glad it has not occurred to any of my own girls."
"Sir Jasper would not like it?"
"Certainly not; but if my brother consents he will not mind it for Dolores. She is a good girl in the main, but even mine have very different ideals from what we had."
"Please tell me. I see it a little, and I have been thinking about it."
"Well, perhaps you will laugh, but my ideal work was Sunday-schools."
"Are not they Miss Mohun's ideal still?"
"Oh yes, infinitely developed, and so they are my cousin Florence's- Lady Florence Devereux; but the young ones think them behind the times. I remember when every girl believed her children the prettiest and cleverest in nature, showed off her Sunday-school as her pride and treasure, and composed small pink books about them, where the catastrophe was either being killed by accident, or going to live in the clergyman's nursery. Now, those that teach do so simply as a duty and not a romance."
"And the difficulty is to find those who will teach," said Geraldine. "One thing is, that the children really require better teaching."
"That is quite true. My girls show me their preparation work, and I see much that I should not have thought of teaching the Beechcroft children. But all the excitement of the matter has gone off."
"I know. The Vale Leston girls do it as their needful work, not with their hearts and enthusiasm. I expect an enthusiasm cannot be expected to last above a generation and perhaps a half."
"Very likely. A more indifferent thing; you will laugh, but my enthusiasm was for chivalry, Christian chivalry, half symbolic. History was delightful to me for the search for true knights. I had lists of them, drawings if possible, but I never could indoctrinate anybody with my affection. Either history is only a lesson, or they know a great deal too much, and will prove to you that the Cid was a ruffian, and the Black Prince not much better."
"And are you allowed the 'Idylls of the King'?"
"Under protest, now that the Mouse-trap has adopted Browning for weekly reading and discussion. Tennyson is almost put on the same shelf with Scott, whom I love better than ever. Is it progress?"
"Well, I suppose it is, in a way."
"But is it the right way?"
"That's what I want to see."
"Now listen. When our young men, my brothers-especially my very dear brother Claude and his contemporaries, Rotherwood is the only one left-were at Oxford, they got raised into a higher atmosphere, and came home with beautiful plans and hopes for the Church, and drew us up with them; but now the University seems just an ordeal for faith to go through."
"I should think there was less of outward temptation, but more of subtle trial. And then the whole system has altered since the times you are speaking of, when the old rules prevailed, and the great giants of Church renewal were there!" said Geraldine.
"You belong to the generation whom they trained, and who are now passing away. My father was one who grew up then."
"We live on their spirit still."
"I hope so. I never knew much about Cambridge till Clement went there, but it had the same influence on him. Indeed, all our home had that one thought ever since I can remember. Clement and Lance grew up in it."
"But you will forgive me. These younger men either go very, very much further than we older ones dreamt of, or they have flaws in their faith, and sometimes-which is the strangest difficulty-the vehement observance and ritual with flaws beneath in their faith perhaps, or their loyalty-Socialist fancies."
"There is impatience," said Geraldine. "The Church progress has not conquered all the guilt and misery in the world."