CHAPTER XV.

THE CLEON.

'Well, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.'

The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress.

'Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,' answered Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest in all these questions. It is too good of you to have asked such an outsider as I am to a gathering like this. I don't feel frightened of you, because I know how kind you are, but I'm afraid I shall be at a loss with all the rest of the clever people.'

Mrs Quaid smiled benignantly. 'Oh, my _dear_, intellect is _not_ what we care for. The great thing is _character_.'

Mrs Quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. She was a distinguished member of the Cleon, a small society which met at the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions. To-night the meeting was to take place in her own drawing-room, and she had invited her daughter's school friend, Clare Stanley, to spend the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her father was going to dine at the 'Travellers'' with a friend, and she did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room. Besides, Mrs Quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more constant associates. Mrs Quaid had, as she said, been a Socialist almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the 'sad distinctions of class,' but she had such tender consideration for those who did not share her views that she never invited those whom she naïvely styled 'one's _own_ friends' to meet any of those members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised. She was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with the fashionable Socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal, appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the present system during their lifetime and that of their children.

On this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming specimen of frank English girlhood, were more interested than usual in the business before them.

This evening was to be a field night. The secretary of the Cleon had captured a genuine Russian Socialist, and the society was disposed to make the most of him.

Nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a large one. It was very amusing to Miss Stanley to watch the arrivals, and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet, and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and unconscious she looked. Mrs Quaid introduced to her several personal adherents, for the Cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its party differences. Miss Stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards any of them. _They_ had not had to fly across Russian frontiers, nor had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of runaway horses.

There was a Civil Service clerk whose strong point was statistics, and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the irreverent Irreconcilables 'the member for Quaid.' He was an advocate for short hours of labour, particularly in Government offices. Then there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for morality in public life, who believed in levelling down--to the level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which Clare thought very nice of him.

Then there was the man whose friends thought he was like Camille Desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like Danton.

Then there was a George Atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it.

The 'great proletariat,' on whose behalf the Cleon met and discussed, was represented by one stone-mason. Clare was surprised when she heard what his calling was, as there was nothing in his dress or bearing to distinguish him from the other men present. Perhaps that was why Mrs Quaid had specially invited him.

There were about a score of other members who were less noticeable on account of any peculiarity. They formed the real strength of the society, and did all the work, owing to which it held a position in the Socialist movement altogether out of proportion to its numbers.

The majority of the ladies gave a business-like aspect to the evening by severely retaining their outdoor garments. Some of these were of peculiar shape and make, a fact which Mrs Quaid explained in a whisper to be the result of their employment of inexperienced dressmakers, on the highest moral grounds.

By the time Clare had noticed all this the room was pretty full, and as everyone talked at once, and very loud, one might, by shutting one's eyes, have fancied oneself at an ordinary 'at home,' instead of at a serious gathering, whose note was earnestness, and whose _motif_ was social regeneration.

She was just thinking something like this when Mrs Quaid touched her on the shoulder.

'Clare, my love,' she said, 'you _must_ let me introduce _dear_ Mr Petrovitch to you. You know he has been so exceedingly good as to consent to read us a paper to-night.'

Clare knew by experience that all her hostess's male friends were 'dear,' and her female ones 'sweet,' for at least three weeks after their first introduction, but when she turned to receive Petrovitch's bow, it did strike her that the epithet was more than usually incongruous. He was about the last person, she thought, to whom terms of indiscriminate endearment could be applied.

After the Continental manner, he had put on evening dress. The wide shirt-front showed off the splendid breadth of a chest that would not have disgraced a Life Guardsman in uniform. Miss Stanley, as she looked at him, admitted to herself that on some people the claw-hammer coat was not without its æsthetic attraction.

As the people settled down into chairs he took a seat beside her, but in such a position that she could see his face without turning her own.

Then, after a few business preliminaries, Petrovitch began to speak. He did not read, as had been announced, but spoke from notes, with a little hesitation, caused, perhaps, by his speaking in a foreign language. To most of his hearers what he had to say was well-known, no doubt; but to Clare all he said came as a revelation. She had come to be amused, to criticise, to 'make fun,' perhaps; but what she heard from this man beside her was not in the least amusing or funny. It seemed to her more like the gospel of a new religion. She listened intently, and after a while, unconsciously influenced by the interest and light in her face, he began to feel less and less as though he were talking to the room, and more and more as though he were speaking solely to the girl beside him. If he saw comprehension in her eyes, he did not trouble to explain a point further; if he saw a question there, he answered it; a doubt, he solved it. Some eyes are easy to read, and Petrovitch was a master of that art.

The girl was no fool, and though the whole theory of Socialism was new to her, she was able to follow the rigorous train of logic with which he led up to his conclusions. He attacked all the stock ideas which she had been brought up to respect. It somehow did not seem like blasphemy. He flung scorn and derision on the social ideals which she had heard lauded from her cradle. Some things which she had been taught to consider admirable and desirable, grew, as he spoke of them, to seem mean and paltry. Life, as she listened, took new meanings, and became of deeper significance. Even the affairs of every day, the chance stories of misery, and the 'painful' paragraphs of the newspapers, which she felt, and shuddered as she felt, had hitherto seemed only occasions for the sprinkling of a little Radical rose-water--little stings of passing horror, which heightened rather than detracted from the pleasures of existence--seemed now to be worth considering in some other light.

This was not the first time that Clare's heart had been stirred and her sympathies quickened by a spoken discourse. More than once she remembered having left the doors of parish church or cathedral in a tumult of emotion when some specially earnest and eloquent preacher had succeeded in casting a new and fierce light into the inmost depths of her soul; but, she remembered, those feelings had been transient, and strong though the new convictions and resolutions had been when she left the sacred portals, the small things of life--the duties of school, the light worries of home, the social _bagatelles_, things trivial and tenuous enough in themselves--had soon settled down upon her like a thick atmosphere, and by their aggregate weight had crushed, not out of existence, but back to her soul's remoter recesses, the new-born life.

As Petrovitch finished speaking, and, folding up his notes, thanked his hearers for their patience and attention, she wondered to herself, so quick is thought, whether what had happened before would not happen again, and whether by this time to-morrow her mind would not be running with its accustomed smoothness in its accustomed channels. She hoped no; she feared yes. But somehow something seemed to tell her that in these past experiences her emotions only had been affected, but that this time her reason also had been forced into life and action, and it would be harder to chloroform that, she thought.

For some minutes after he had ceased she was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she hardly noticed the sharp fire of questions which was levelled at him from visitors in different parts of the room. When she did begin to listen to them, it was only to wonder how people could so have misunderstood what seemed to her so clear. There was one lady in particular who asked inconsequent questions in such a feebly deliberate manner, dropping her words out as though they were some precious elixir of which it was not well to give out much at a time, that Clare felt an insane desire to shake her words out of her, and at the same time a little sense into her.

The genial young stockbroker wanted to know whether the best part of Petrovitch's scheme was not included in the present Radical programme, but his suggestion was received with disapprobation by the large majority, and he hastily withdrew into obscurity. It struck Miss Stanley that all the questions and remarks were on side issues, and left untouched the main contentions.

When the chairman of the evening announced that the discussion was at an end, everybody rose and began to talk at once--in most cases _not_ about the paper. Perhaps they were all glad to get away from the larger questions of life's possibilities, and to return to the trivial personalities which form the chief interest of most of our lives.

'You are interested in these questions, Miss Stanley?' Petrovitch said, as he turned to bid her good-night.

'I--I--shall be.'

'Yes, I think you will. Good-bye.'

He left alone, and at once, telling his hostess he had an appointment to keep.

Just outside the door he met Count Litvinoff's visitor of the morning. Hirsch had evidently been waiting for him with some impatience. He turned, and they walked away together.

'I've been here some time,' he said. 'I thought you must have gone.'

'I am sorry,' said Petrovitch; 'I could not leave earlier.'

'Little good you'll do in a house like that,' grumbled Hirsch, knitting his brows. 'Casting pearls before swine.'

'Not quite that, my good Hirsch. Casting seed upon stony ground, maybe, but I am much mistaken if some has not fallen upon virgin soil, and then my evening has not been wasted. How did it fare with you this morning?'

Hirsch silently produced Litvinoff's cheque, not quite so fresh-looking as when he had received it.

'Ah, as I expected!' said the other, glancing at it under a lamp. 'Ten pounds is not illiberal. You see, he does not keep so tight a purse-string as you thought.'

'Lightly won lightly spent. Donner wetter! he gained it easily enough.'

'This is not spent--it is given. Don't be unjust.'

'Gott in Himmel! You're a good man, Petrovitch. You seem to have no faults.'

'Ah! so it may seem to you who have known me only three months, but I have known myself more than a score of years, and I know that I am full of them. Come home with me and have a smoke, and we'll talk about something else.'

* * * * *

'And how have you liked it, my dearest Clare? Have you been terribly bored--or puzzled perhaps--since you are not used to these discussions?'

'I have never been more interested than I was by Mr Petrovitch,' said Clare, with perfect truth.

'Ah, yes,' said Mrs Quaid enthusiastically; 'so sweet, isn't he?'

Clare did not answer, but as she drove home it occurred to her that the principal ingredient in Petrovitch's character was not exactly sugar.