One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
when the fencing passed his guard, that Fenellan should prefer
to flash for the minute. He would have met a pert defender
of England, in the person of Miss Priscilla Graves, if
she had not been occupied with observation of the bearing
of Lady Grace Halley toward Mr. Victor Radnor; which displeased
her on behalf of Mrs. Victor; she was besides hostile
by race and class to an aristocratic assumption of licence.
Sparing Colney, she with some scorn condemned Mr.
Pempton for allowing his country to be ridiculed without a
word. Mr. Pempton believed that the Vegetarian movement
was more progressive in England than in other lands, but he
was at the disadvantage with the fair Priscilla, that eulogy of
his compatriots on this account would win her coldest approval.
‘Satire was never an argument,’ he said, too evasively.
The Rev. Septimus Barmby received the meed of her smile,
for saying in his many-fathom bass, with an eye on Victor:
‘At least we may boast of breeding men, who are leaders of
men.’
The announcement of luncheon, by Victor’s butler Arlington,
opportunely followed and freighted the remark with a
happy recognition of that which comes to us from the hands
of conquerors. Dr. Schlesien himself, no antagonist to England,
but like Colney Durance, a critic, speculated in view
of the spread of pic-nic provision beneath the great glass
dome, as to whether it might be, that these English were on
another start out of the dust in vigorous commercial enterprise,
under leadership of one of their chance masterly mindsmerchant,
in this instance: and be debated within, whether
Genius, occasionally developed in a surprising superior manner
by these haphazard English, may not sometimes wrest
the prize from Method; albeit we count for the long run,
that Method has assurance of success, however late in the
race to set forth.
Luncheon was a merry meal, with Victor and Nataly for
host and hostess; Fenellan, Colney Durance, and Lady Grace
Halley for the talkers. A gusty bosom of sleet overhung the
dome, rattled on it, and rolling Westward, became a radiant
mountain-land, partly worthy of Victor’s phrase: ‘A range of
Swiss Alps in air.’
‘With periwigs Louis Quatorze for peaks,’ Colney added.
And Fenellan improved on him: ‘Or a magnified Bench of
Judges at the trial of your caerulean Phryne.’
71