What Not: A Prophetic Comedy Read online

  CHAPTER V

  THE EXPLANATION CAMPAIGN

  1

  It will be generally admitted that Acts are not good at explainingthemselves, and call for words to explain them; many words, so many thatit is at times wondered whether the Acts are worth it. It occurred aboutthis time to the Ministry of Brains that more words were called for toexplain both the Mental Progress Act recently passed and the MindTraining Act which was still a Bill. For neither of these Acts seemed tohave yet explained itself, or been explained, to the public, in such amanner as to give general satisfaction. And yet explanations had to begiven with care. Acts, like lawyers' deeds, do not care to be understoodthrough and through. The kind of explaining they really need, as KittyGrammont observed, is the kind called explaining away. For this task sheconsidered herself peculiarly fitted by training, owing to having had inher own private career several acts which had demanded it. It wasperhaps for this reason that she was among those chosen by theauthorities for the Explanation Campaign. The Explanation Campaign wasto be fought in the rural villages of England, by bands of speakerschosen for their gift of the ready word, and it would be a tough fight.The things to be explained were the two Acts above mentioned.

  "And none of mine," Kitty remarked to Prideaux, "ever needed so muchexplanation as these will.... Let me see, no one ever even tried toexplain any of the Military Service Acts, did they? At least only in thepress. The perpetrators never dared to face the public man to man, onvillage greens."

  "It ought to have been done more," Prideaux said. "The Review ofExceptions, for instance. If questions and complaints could have beengot out of the public in the open, and answered on village greens, asyou say, instead of by official letters which only made things worse, alot of trouble might have been avoided. Chester is great on theseheart-to-heart talks.... By the way, he's going to interview all theExplanation people individually before they start, to make sure they'regoing about it in the right spirit."

  "That's so like Chester; he'll go to any trouble," Kitty said. "I'mgetting to think he's a really great man."

  2

  Chester really did interview them all. To Kitty, whom already he knewpersonally, he talked freely.

  "You must let the people in," he said, walking about the room, his handsin his pockets. "Don't keep them at official arm's length. Let them feel_part_ of it all.... Make them catch fire with the idea of it.... It'ssheer stark truth--intelligence _is_ the thing that counts--if onlyeveryone would see it. Make them see stupidity for the limp, hopeless,helpless, animal thing it is--an idiot drivelling on a green"--Kittycould have fancied that he shuddered a little--"make them hate it--wantthe other thing; want it so much that they'll even sacrifice a little oftheir personal comfort and desires to get it for themselves and theirchildren. They must want it more than money, more than comfort, morethan love, more than freedom.... You'll have to get hold of differentpeople in different ways, of course; some have imaginations and somehaven't; those who haven't must be appealed to through their commonsense, if any, or, failing any, their feeling for their children, or,even, at the lowest, their fear of consequences.... Tell some of themthere'll be another war if they're so stupid; tell others they'll neverget on in the world; anything you think will touch the spot. But first,always, try to collar their imaginations.... You've done some publicspeaking, haven't you?"

  Kitty owned it, and he nodded.

  "That's all right, then; you'll know how to keep your finger on theaudience's pulse.... You'll make them laugh, too...."

  Kitty was uncertain, as she left the presence, whether this last was aninstruction or a prophecy.

  3

  The other members of Kitty's party (the Campaign was to be conducted inparties of two or three people each) did not belong to the Ministry;they were hired for it for this purpose. They were a lady doctor,prominent on public platforms and decorated for signal services to hercountry during the Great War, and a free-lance clergyman known for hispulpit eloquence and the caustic wit with which he lashed the socialsystem. He had resigned his incumbency long ago in order to devotehimself the more freely to propaganda work for the causes he had atheart, wrote for a labour paper, and went round the country speaking.The Minister of Brains (who had been at Cambridge with him, and read hisarticles in the labour paper, in which he frequently stated thatmuddle-headedness was the curse of the world) had, with his usual eyefor men, secured him to assist in setting forth the merits of the BrainsActs.

  They began in Buckinghamshire, which was one of the counties assigned tothem. At Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield it was chilly, and they heldtheir meetings respectively in the National School and in the brightgreen Parish Hall which is the one blot on a most picturesque city. Butat Little Chantreys it was fine, and they met at six o'clock in thebroad open space outside the church. They had a good audience. Themeeting had been well advertised, and it seemed that the village was asanxious to hear the Brains Acts explained as the Ministry was to explainthem. Or possibly the village, for its own part, had something it wishedto explain. Anyhow they came, rich and poor, high and low, men, women,children, and infants in arms (these had, for the most part, everyappearance of deserving heavy taxation; however, the physiognomy ofinfants is sometimes misleading). Anthony Grammont and Pansy were there,with the Cheeper, now proud in his baptismal name of Montmorency. Thevicar and his wife were there too, though Mr. Delmer did not approvemuch of the Reverend Stephen Dixon, rightly thinking him a disturbingpriest. It was all very well to advocate Life and Liberty in moderation(though Mr. Delmer did not himself belong to the society for promotingthese things in the Church), but the vicar did not believe that anychurch could stand, without bursting, the amount of new wine whichStephen Dixon wished to pour into it. "He is very much in earnest," wasall the approval that he could, in his charity, give to this priest. Sohe waited a little uneasily for Dixon's remarks on the Brains Acts,feeling that it might become his ungracious duty to take publicexception to some of them.

  The scene had its picturesqueness in the evening sunshine--the openspace in which the narrow village streets met, backed by the little greychurch, and with a patch of green where women and children sat; and infront of these people standing, leisurely, placid, gossiping, the womeninnocently curious to hear what the speakers from London had to sayabout this foolish business there was such an upset about just now; someof the men more aggressive, determined to stand no nonsense, with awe'll-know-the-reason-why expression on their faces. This expression waspeculiarly marked on the countenance of the local squire, CaptainAmbrose. He did not like all this interfering, socialist what-not, whichwas both upsetting the domestic arrangements of his tenants and tryingto put into their heads more learning than was suitable for them tohave. For his part he thought every man had a right to be a fool if hechose, yes, and to marry another fool, and to bring up a family of foolstoo. Damn it all, fools or not, hadn't they shed their blood for theircountry, and where would the country have been without them, though nowthe country talked so glibly of not allowing them to reproducethemselves until they were more intelligent. Captain Ambrose, afragile-looking man, burnt by Syrian suns and crippled by Britishmachine-guns at instruction classes (a regrettable mistake which ofcourse would not have occurred had the operator been more intelligent),stood in the forefront of the audience with intention to heckle. Nearhim stood the Delmers and Miss Ponsonby and Anthony Grammont. Pansy wastalking, in her friendly, cheerful way, to Mrs. Delmer about theCheeper's food arrangements, which were unusual in one so young.

  In the middle of the square were Dr. Cross, graceful, capable-lookingand grey-haired; Stephen Dixon, lean and peculiar (so the villagethought); Kitty Grammont, pale after the day's heat, and playing withher dangling pince-nez; a tub; and two perambulators, each containing aninfant; Mrs. Rose's and Mrs. Dean's, as the village knew. The ladydoctor had been round in the afternoon looking at all the babies andasking questions, and had finally picked these two and asked if theymight be lent for the meeting. But what use was going to be made of
thepoor mites, no one knew.

  Dr. Cross was on the tub. She was talking about the already existingAct, the Mental Progress Act of last year.

  "Take some talking about, too, to make us swallow it whole," mutteredCaptain Ambrose.

  Dr. Cross was a gracious and eloquent speaker; the village rather likedher. She talked of babies, as one who knew; no doubt she did know,having, as she mentioned, had two herself. She grew pathetic in pleadingfor the rights of the children to their chance in life. Some of themothers wiped their eyes and hugged their infants closer to them; theyshould have it, then, so they should. How, said the doctor, werechildren to win any of life's prizes without brains? (Jane Delmer lookedself-conscious; she had won a prize for drawing this term; she wonderedif the speaker had heard this.) Even health--how could health be won andkept without intelligent following of the laws nature has laid down forus ("I never did none o' that, and look at me, seventy-five next monthand still fit and able," old William Weston was heard to remark), andhow was that to be done without intelligence? Several parents lookeddubious; they were not sure that they wanted any of that in theirhouseholds; it somehow had a vague sound of draughts.... After sketchingin outline the probable careers of the intelligent and the unintelligentinfant, between which so wide a gulf was fixed, the doctor discoursed onheredity, that force so inadequately reckoned with, which moulds thegenerations. Appealing to Biblical lore, she enquired if figs werelikely to produce thorns, or thistles grapes. This started WilliamWeston, who had been a gardener, on strange accidents he had met with inthe vegetable world; Dr. Cross, a gardener too, listened with interest,but observed that these were freaks and must not, of course, be taken asthe normal; then, to close that subject, she stepped down from the tub,took the infants Rose and Dean out of their perambulators, and held themup, one on each arm, to the public gaze. Here, you have, she said, acertificated child, whose parents received a bonus for it, and anuncertificated child, whose parents were taxed. Observe the differencein the two--look at the bright, noticing air of the infant Rose ("Ofcourse; she's a-jogglin' of it up and down on her arm," said a smallgirl who knew the infant Rose). Observe its fine, intelligent littlehead (Mrs. Rose preened, gratified). A child who is going to make a goodthing of its life. Now compare it with the lethargy of the other baby,who lies sucking an india-rubber sucker (a foolish and unclean habit initself) and taking no notice of the world about it.

  "Why, the poor mite," this infant's parent exclaimed, pushing her way tothe front, "she's been ailing the last two days; it's her pore littletummy, that's all. And, if you please, ma'am, I'll take her home now.Holdin' her up to scorn before the village that way--an' you callyourself a mother!"

  "Indeed, I meant nothing against the poor child," Dr. Cross explained,realising that she had, indeed, been singularly tactless. "She is merelya type, to illustrate my meaning.... And, of course, it's more thanpossible that if you give her a thoroughly good mental training she maybecome as intelligent as anyone, in spite of having been so heavilyhandicapped by her parents' unregulated marriage. That's where theGovernment Mind Training Course will come in. She'll be developed beyondall belief...."

  "She won't," said the outraged parent, arranging her infant in herperambulator, "be developed or anythin' else. She's comin' home to bed.And I'd like to know what you mean, ma'am, by unregulated marriage. Ourmarriage was all right; it was 'ighly approved, and we got money by thisbaby. It's my opinion you've mixed the two children up, and are takingmine for Mrs. Rose's there, that got taxed, pore mite, owing to Mr. andMrs. Rose both being in C class."

  "That's right," someone else cried. "It's the other one that was taxedand ought to be stupid; you've got 'em mixed, ma'am. Better luck nexttime."

  Dr. Cross collapsed in some confusion, amid good-humoured laughter, andthe infant Rose was also hastily restored to its flattered mother, who,being only C3, did not quite grasp what had occurred except that herbaby had been held up for admiration and Mrs. Dean's for obloquy, whichwas quite right and proper.

  "One of nature's accidents," apologised Dr. Cross. "They will happensometimes, of course. So will stupid mistakes.... Better luck next time,as you say." She murmured to Stephen Dixon, "Change the subject atonce," so he got upon the tub and began to talk about Democracy, how itshould control the state, but couldn't, of course, until it was bettereducated.

  "But all these marriage laws," said a painter who was walking out withthe vicarage housemaid and foresaw financial ruin if they got married,"they won't help, as I can see, to give _us_ control of the state."

  Dixon told him he must look to the future, to his children, in fact. Thepainter threw a forward glance at his children, not yet born; it lefthim cold. Anyhow, if he married Nellie they'd probably die young, fromstarvation.

  But, in the main, Dixon's discourse on democracy was popular. Dixon wasa popular speaker with working-men; he had the right touch. But squiresdid not like him. Captain Ambrose disliked him very much. It was justdemocracy, and all this socialism, that was spoiling the country.

  Mr. Delmer ventured to say that he thought the private and domesticlives of the public ought not to be tampered with.

  "Why not?" enquired Stephen Dixon, and Mr. Delmer had not, at themoment, an answer ready. "When everything else is being tampered with,"added Dixon. "And surely the more we tamper (if you put it like that) inthe interests of progress, the further removed we are from savages."

  Mr. Delmer looked puzzled for a moment, then committed himself, withoutsufficient preliminary thought, to a doubtful statement, "Human loveought to be free," which raised a cheer.

  "Free love," Dixon returned promptly, "has never, surely, been advocatedby the best thinkers of Church or State," and while Mr. Delmer blushed,partly at his own carelessness, partly at the delicacy of the subject,and partly because Pansy Ponsonby was standing at his elbow, Dixonadded, "Love, like anything else, wants regulating, organising, turningto the best uses. Otherwise, we become, surely, no better than the otheranimals...."

  "Isn't he just terribly fierce," observed Pansy in her smilingcontralto, to the world at large.

  Mr. Delmer said uncomfortably, "You mistake me, sir. I was notadvocating lawless love. I am merely maintaining that love--if we mustuse the word--should not be shackled by laws relating to things whichare of less importance than itself, such as the cultivation of theintelligence."

  "_Is_ it of less importance?" Dixon challenged him.

  "The greatest of these three," began the vicar, inaptly, because he wasflustered.

  "Quite so," said Dixon; "but St. Paul, I think, doesn't includeintelligence in his three. St. Paul, I believe, was able enough himselfto know how much ability matters in the progress of religion. And, if weare to quote St. Paul, he, of course, was no advocate of matrimony, butI think, when carried out at all, he would have approved of its beingcarried out on the best possible principles, not from mere casualimpulse and desire.... Freedom," continued Dixon, with the dreamy andkindled eye which always denoted with him that he was on a pet topic,"what _is_ freedom? I beg--I do beg," he added hastily, "that no onewill tell me it is mastery of ourselves. I have heard that before. It isno such thing. Mastery of ourselves is a fine thing; freedom is, orwould be if anyone ever had such a thing, an absurdity, a monstrosity.It would mean that there would be nothing, either external or internal,to prevent us doing precisely what we like. No laws of nature, ofmorality, of the State, of the Church, of Society...."

  Dr. Cross caught Kitty's eye behind him.

  "He's off," she murmured. "We must stop him."

  Kitty coughed twice, with meaning. It was a signal agreed upon betweenthe three when the others thought that the speaker was on the wrongtack. Dixon recalled himself from Freedom with a jerk, and began to talkabout the coming Mind Training Act. He discoursed upon its generaladvantages to the citizen, and concluded by saying that Miss Grammont, amember of the Ministry of Brains, would now explain to them the Act indetail, and answer any questions they might wish to put. This MissGrammont proceeded to do
. And this was the critical moment of themeeting, for the audience, who desired no Act at all, had to bepersuaded that the Act would be a good Act. Kitty outlined it, thinkinghow much weaker both Acts and words sound on village greens than inoffices, which is certainly a most noteworthy fact, and one to beremembered by all politicians and makers of laws. Perhaps it is theunappreciative and unstimulating atmosphere of stolid distaste which isso often, unfortunately, to be met with in villages.... Villages are sostupid; they will not take the larger view, nor see why things annoyingto them personally are necessary for the public welfare. Kitty wishedshe were instead addressing a northern manufacturing town, which wouldhave been much fiercer but which would have understood more about it.

  She dealt with emphasis on the brighter sides of the Act, i.e. theclauses dealing with the pecuniary compensation people would receive forthe loss of time and money which might be involved in undergoing theTraining Course, and those relating to exemptions. When she got to theTribunals, a murmur of disapproval sounded.

  "They tribunals--we're sick to death of them," someone said. "Look atthe people there are walking about the countryside exempted from theMarriage Acts, when better men and women has to obey them. The tribunalswere bad enough during the war, everyone knows, but nothing to what theyare now. We don't want any more of those."

  This was an awkward subject, as Captain Ambrose was a reluctant chairmanof the Local Mental Progress Tribunal. He fidgeted and prodded theground with his stick, while Kitty said, "I quite agree with you. Wedon't. But if there are to be exemptions from the Act, local tribunalsare necessary. You can't have individual cases decided by the centralauthorities who know nothing of the circumstances. Tribunals must beappointed who can be relied on to grant exemptions fairly, on thegrounds specified in the Act."

  She proceeded to enumerate these grounds. One of them was such povertyof mental calibre that the possessor was judged quite incapable ofbenefiting by the course. A look of hope dawned on several faces; thismight, it was felt, be a way out. The applicant, Kitty explained, wouldbe granted exemption if suffering from imbecility, extremefeeble-mindedness, any form of genuine mania, acute, intermittent,chronic, delusional, depressive, obsessional, lethargic....

  Dixon coughed twice, thinking the subject depressing and too technicalfor the audience, and Kitty proceeded to outline the various forms ofexemption which might be held, a more cheerful topic. She concluded,remembering the Minister's instructions, by drawing an inspiring pictureof the changed aspect life would bear after the mind had been thusimproved; how it would become a series of open doors, of chances taken,instead of a dull closed house. Everything would be so amusing, sopossible, such fun. And they would get on; they would grow rich; therewould be perpetual peace and progress instead of another great war,which was, alas, all too possible if the world remained as stupid as ithad been up to the present....

  Here Kitty's eye lighted unintentionally on her brother Anthony's face,with the twist of a cynical grin on it, and she collapsed from theheights of eloquence. It never did for the Grammonts to encounter eachother's eyes when they were being exalted; the memories and experiencesshared by brothers and sisters rose cynically, like rude gamins, to mockand bring them down.

  Kitty said, "If anyone would like to ask any questions...." and got offthe tub.

  Someone enquired, after the moment of blankness which usually followsthis invitation, what they would be taught, exactly.

  Kitty said there would be many different courses, adapted to differingrequirements. But, in the main, everyone would be taught to use to thebest advantage such intelligence as they might have, in that state oflife to which it might please God to call them.

  "And how," pursued the enquirer, a solid young blacksmith, "will theteachers know what that may be?"

  Kitty explained that they wouldn't, exactly, of course, but the mindswhich took the course would be so sharpened and improved as to tackleany work better than before. But there would also be forms to be filledin, stating approximately what was each individual's line in life.

  After another pause a harassed-looking woman at the back saidplaintively, "I'm sure it's all very nice, miss, but it does seem as ifsuch things might be left to the men. They've more time, as it were. Yousee, miss, when you've done out the house and got the children's mealsand put them to bed and cleaned up and all, not to mention washing-day,and ironing--well, you've not much time left to improve the mind, haveyou?"

  It was Dr. Cross who pointed out that, the mind once improved, thesehousehold duties would take, at most, half the time they now did. "Iknow that, ma'am," the tired lady returned. "I've known girls who setout to improve their minds, readin' and that, and their house dutiesdidn't take them any time at all, and nice it was for their families.What I say is, mind improvement should be left to the men, who've timefor such things; women are mostly too busy, and if they aren't theyshould be."

  Several men said "Hear, hear" to this. Rural England, as Dr. Crosssometimes remarked, was still regrettably eastern, or German, in itsfeminist views, even now that, since the war, so many more thousands ofwomen were perforce independent wage-earners, and even now that they hadthe same political rights as men. Stephen flung forth a few explosiveviews on invidious sex distinctions, another pet topic of his, andremarked that, in the Christian religion, at least, there was neithermale nor female. A shade of scepticism on the faces of several womenmight be taken to hint at a doubt whether the Christian religion, inthis or in most other respects, was life as it was lived, and at acertainty that it was time for them to go home and get the supper. Theybegan to drift away, with their children round them, gossiping to eachother of more interesting things than Mind Training. For, after all, ifit was to be it was, and where was the use of talking?

  4

  It was getting dusk. The male part of the audience also fell away, totalk in the roads while supper was preparing. Only the vicar was left,and Captain Ambrose, and Anthony Grammont, and Pansy, who came up totalk to Kitty.

  "My dear," said Pansy, "I feel absolutely flattened out by yourpreacher, with his talk of 'the other animals,' and organised love. NowMr. Delmer was sweet to me--he said it ought to be free, an' I know hedoesn't really think so, but only said it for my sake and Tony's. Butyour man's terrifyin'. I'm almost frightened to have him sleep at theEnd House to-night; I'm afraid he'll set fire to the sheets, he's sohot. Won't you introduce me?"

  But Dixon was at this moment engaged in talking to the vicar, who, notto be daunted and brow-beaten by the notorious Stephen Dixon, wasmanfully expounding his position to him and Dr. Cross, while CaptainAmbrose backed him up.

  "They may be all night, I should judge from the look of them," saidKitty, who by now knew her clergyman and her doctor well. "Let's leavethem at it and come home; Tony can bring them along when they're ready."

  The End House had offered its hospitality to all the three Explainers,and they were spending the night there instead of, as usual, at thevillage inn. Kitty and Pansy were overtaken before they reached it byAnthony and Dr. Cross and Dixon.

  Pansy said, with her sweet, ingratiating smile, "I was sayin' to Kitty,Mr. Dixon, that you made me feel quite bad with your talk about freelove."

  "I'm sorry," said Dixon, "but it was the vicar who talked of that, notI. I talked of organised love. I never talk of free love: I don't likeit."

  "I noticed you didn't," said Pansy. "That's just what I felt so badabout. Mind you, I think you're awfully right, only it takes so muchlivin' up to, doesn't it? with things tangled up as they are.... Sureyou don't mind stayin' with us, I suppose?" She asked it innocently,rolling at him a sidelong glance from her beautiful music-hall eyes.

  Dixon looked at sea. "Mind?..."

  "Well, you might, mightn't you, as ours is free." Then, at his puzzledstare, "Why, Kitty, you surely told him!"

  "I'm afraid I never thought of it," Kitty faltered. "She means," sheexplained, turning to the two guests, "that she and my brother aren'texactly married, you know. They can't be, because Pans
y has a husbandsomewhere. They would if they could; they'd prefer it."

  "We'd prefer it," Pansy echoed, a note of wistfulness in her calm voice."Ever so much. It's _much_ nicer, isn't it?--as you were sayin'. Wethink so too, don't we, old man?" She turned to Anthony but he hadstalked ahead, embarrassed by the turn the conversation was taking. Hewas angry with Kitty for not having explained the situation beforehand,angry with Pansy for explaining it now, and angry with Dixon for notunderstanding without explanation.

  "But I do hope," Pansy added to both her guests, slipping on hercourteous and queenly manner, "that you will allow it to make nodifference."

  Dr. Cross said, "Of course not. What do you imagine?" She was a littleworried by the intrusion of these irrelevant domestic details into ahitherto interesting evening. Pansy's morals were her own concern, butit was a pity that her taste should allow her to make this awkwardscene.

  But Dixon stopped, and, looking his hostess squarely in the face--theywere exactly of a height--said, "I am sorry, but I am afraid it doesmake a difference. I hate being rude, and I am most grateful to you foryour hospitable invitation; but I must go to the inn instead."

  Pansy stared back, and a slow and lovely rose colour overspread herclear face. She was not used to being rebuffed by men.

  "I'm frightfully sorry," Stephen Dixon repeated, reddening too. "But,you see, if I slept at your house it would be seeming to acquiesce insomething which I believe it to be tremendously important not toacquiesce in.... Put it that I'm a prig ... anyhow, there it is.... Willyou apologise for me to your brother?" he added to Kitty, who waslooking on helplessly, conscious that the situation was beyond her. "Andplease forgive me--I know it seems unpardonable rudeness." He held outhis hand to Pansy, tentatively. She took it, without malice. Pansy wasnot a rancorous woman.

  "That's all right, Mr. Dixon. If you can't swallow our ways, you justcan't, and there's an end of it. Lots of people can't, you know. Goodnight. I hope you'll be comfortable."

  5

  Kitty looked after him with a whistle.

  "I'm fearfully sorry, Pansy love. I never thought to expatiatebeforehand on Tony and you.... I introduced you as Miss Ponsonby--but Isuppose he never noticed, or thought you were the Cheeper's governess orsomething. Who'd have thought he'd take on like that? But you neverknow, with the clergy; they're so unaccountable."

  "I'm relieved, a bit," Pansy said. "I was frightened of him, that's afact."

  Dr. Cross said, "The queer thing about Stephen Dixon is that you neverknow when he'll take a thing in this way and when he won't. I've knownhim sit at tea in the houses of the lowest slum criminals--by the way,that is surely the scriptural line--and I've known him cut in the streetpeople who were doing the same things in a different way--a sweatingshopowner, for instance. I sometimes think it depends with him on thesize and comfort of the house the criminal lives in, which is toohopelessly illogical, you'd think, for an intelligent man like him. Ilose my patience with him sometimes, I confess. But anyhow he knows hisown mind."

  "He's gone," Pansy said to Anthony, who was waiting for them at thegate. "He thinks it's important not to acquiesce in us. So he's gone tothe inn.... By the way, I nearly told him that the innkeeper is leadinga double life too--ever so much worse than ours--but I thought it wouldbe too unkind, he'd have had to sleep on the green."

  "Well," Anthony said crossly, "we can get on without him. But anothertime, darling, I wish you'd remember that there's not the least need toexplain our domestic affairs in the lane to casual acquaintances, evenif they do happen to be spending the night. It's simply not done, youknow! It makes a most embarrassing situation all round. I know you'renot shy, but you might remember that I am."

  "Sorry, old dear," said Pansy. "There's been so much explainin' thisevenin' that I suppose I caught it.... You people," she added to Dr.Cross and Kitty, "have got awkwarder things to explain than I have. I'da long sight rather have to explain free love than love by Act ofParliament."

  "But on the whole," said the doctor, relieved to have got on to thatsubject again after the rather embarrassing interlude of privateaffairs, "I thought the meeting this evening not bad. What did youthink, Miss Grammont?"

  "I should certainly," said Kitty, "have expected it to have been worse.If I had been one of the audience, it would have been."

  6

  Some of the subsequent meetings of that campaign, in fact, were. But notall. On the whole, as Dr. Cross put it, they were not bad.

  "It's a toss-up," said Dixon at the end, "how the country is going totake this business. There's a chance, a good fighting chance, that theymay rise to the idea and accept it, even if they can't like it. Itdepends a lot on how it's going to be worked, and that depends on thepeople at the top. And for the people at the top, all one can say isthat there's a glimmer of hope. Chester himself has got imagination; andas long as a man's got that he may pull through, even if he's head of agovernment department.... Of course one main thing is not to makepledges; they can't be kept; everyone knows they can't be kept, assituations change, and when they break there's a row.... Anotherthing--the rich have got to set the example; they must drop this havingtheir fun and paying for it, which the poor can't afford. If that'sallowed there'll be revolution. Perhaps anyhow there'll be revolution.And revolutions aren't always the useful things they ought to be; theysometimes lead to reaction. Oh, you Brains people have got to be jollycareful."

  A week later the Mind Training Bill became an Act. It did, in fact, seemto be a toss-up how the public, that strange, patient, unaccountabledark horse, were going to take it. That they took it at all, and thatthey continued to take the Mental Progress Act, was ascribed byobservant people largely to the queer, growing, and quite peculiarinfluence of Nicholas Chester. It was an odd influence for a minister ofthe government to have in this country; one would have almost havesupposed him instead a power of the Press, the music-hall stage, or thecinema world. It behoved him, as Dixon said to be jolly careful.