Читать книгу The Anxious Days - Philip Gibbs - Страница 19

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Well, it was good to sit at such a table after three years’ exile out East. Commander Compton felt a little emotional about it as he glanced at his fellow guests. His crowd!—all a little older since he had last seen them, but still carrying on. Their friendship in the old days had been the best thing in his life. He remembered hours of laughter with young fellows who were now these middle-aged fathers of grown-up sons and daughters—how incredibly fast the time had fled!—and brilliant evenings at dances and parties with pretty girls, slim and exquisite, who were now these women growing grey or plump.

“How’s Madge?” asked Helen presently, when she had done her duty as hostess and relaxed a little at the dinner-table.

“Working too hard,” said Compton. “I shall be glad when that first night is over.”

“That girl will lead you a pretty dance before you’ve done with her!” said Helen. “I don’t suppose you’ll see much more of her than the swish of her frock.”

Commander Compton thought over that remark. He hoped she was exaggerating. Certainly he hadn’t seen much of Madge yet.

“She’s full of life,” he answered. “She never seems to get tired.”

Mrs. Lambert laughed at this remark.

“They don’t nowadays. Not the girls. It’s the boys who get tired. Simon was born tired!”

She looked towards the end of the table where her son sat between two pretty women.

“He’s behaving quite nicely with Mrs. Balantyne. I expect they’re discussing biological facts. She reads all the unpleasant books and talks about them freely. Disgusting, I call it, but then I’m old-fashioned.”

Presently she turned to Arthur Hammerton—“Mustard Seed,” as Compton had called him before he became a director of the Bank of England.

“How soon does ruin overtake us?” she asked. “I suppose the Labour Government is going to squander our last reserves?”

“Not if Philip Snowden has anything to do with them,” answered Sir Arthur with the sandy hair. “He’s not too bad as Chancellor of the Exchequer. At least he understands arithmetic, which is more than I can say for some of his predecessors. As for ruin—which heaven forbid—it depends more on other people than on ourselves. I’m not too sure of those United States. Prosperity built on gambling in Wall Street and the hire purchase system to bolster up over-production doesn’t seem to me altogether sound. Then, of course, there’s Germany—there is always Germany—— But what charming flowers those are Helen! How exquisite!”

Compton found himself engaged in conversation with Mrs. Tavistock, whom he had known best as Kitty Crichton. She asked him if he believed in the Second Phase of Tribulation, and he had to confess that he had never heard of it. Out in the Federated Malay States he had missed a good many things.

“Oh, but it’s marvellous!” said Mrs. Tavistock emotionally, so that her bodice seemed to be under undue pressure. “It’s all worked out in the Pyramids. The Egyptians used the inch, you know, and if you follow the measurements you know everything of importance which has happened or will happen in world history. It’s mixed up with the British Israelites. I can’t quite understand it because it’s all very difficult, but what it really means is, that we—the Anglo-Saxon race—are the lost tribes of Israel and the Chosen People. There is going to be a Second Phase of Tribulation in the world. But after ruin everywhere the British are coming out on top.”

“Well, that’s good news,” said Compton cheerfully. “But can’t we avoid the tribulation part? Personally, I don’t want any more tribulation. I want a little peace and quiet. I want to settle down with my daughter Madge.”

“We’re going through Agony,” said Mrs. Tavistock, with apparent enthusiasm. “Russia is the enemy of mankind. Labour is in league with Bolshevism.”

She tried to raise the hair on his head by these prophecies of woe, and did, indeed, cause him a slight sense of uneasiness, though he didn’t believe a word about the Pyramids. He had once been into those Pyramids, held up for baksheesh in the darkness of the King’s Chamber by two young guides.