登陆注册
5253200000020

第20章

"You are all old-fashioned-and stiff with prejudice," Furley declared. "Even Orden," he went on, turning to Catherine, "only tolerates me because we ate dinners off the same board when we were' both making up our minds to be Lord High Chancellor."

"Our friend Furley," Julian confided, as he leaned across the table and took a cigarette, "has no tact and many prejudices. He does write such rubbish about the aristocracy. I remember an article of his not very long ago, entitled `Out with our Peers!'

It's all very well for a younger son like me to take it lying down, but you could scarcely expect my father to approve.

Besides, I believe the fellow's a renegade. I have an idea that he was born in the narrower circles himself."

"That's where you're wrong, then," Furley grunted with satisfaction. "My father was a boot manufacturer in a country village of Leicestershire. I went in for the Bar because he left me pots of money, most of which, by the bye, I seem to have dissipated."

"Chiefly in Utopian schemes for the betterment of his betters,"

Julian observed drily.

"I certainly had an idea," Furley confessed, "of an asylum for incapable younger sons."

"I call a truce," Julian proposed. "It isn't polite to spar before Miss Abbeway."

"To me," Mr. Stenson declared, "this is a veritable temple of peace. I arrived here literally on all fours. Miss Abbeway has proved to me quite conclusively that as a democratic leader I have missed my vocation."

She looked at him reproachfully. Nevertheless, his words seemed to have brought back to her mind the thrill of their brief but stimulating conversation. A flash of genuine earnestness transformed her face, just as a gleam of wintry sunshine, which had found its way in through the open window, seemed to discover threads of gold in her tightly braided and luxuriant brown hair.

Her eyes filled with an almost inspired light:

"Mr. Stenson is scarcely fair to me," she complained. "I did not presume to criticise his statesmanship, only there are some things here which seem pitiful. England should be the ideal democracy of the world. Your laws admit of it, your Government admits of it.

Neither birth nor money are indispensable to success. The way is open for the working man to pass even to the Cabinet. And you are nothing of the sort. The cause of the people is not in any country so shamefully and badly represented. You have a bourgeoisie which maintains itself in almost feudal luxury by means of the labour which it employs, and that labour is content to squeak and open its mouth for worms, when it should have the finest fruits of the world. And all this is for want of leadership. Up you come you David Sands, you Phineas Crosses, you Nicholas Fenns, you Thomas Evanses. You each think that you represent Labour, but you don't. You represent trade - the workers at one trade. How they laugh at you, the men who like to keep the government of this country in their own possession! They stretch down a hand to the one who has climbed the highest, they pull him up into the Government, and after that Labour is well quit of him. He has found his place with the gods. Perhaps they will make him a `Sir' and his wife a `Lady,' but for him it is all over with the Cause. And so another ten years is wasted, while another man grows up to take his place."

"She's right enough," Furley confessed gloomily. "There is something about the atmosphere of the inner life of politics which has proved fatal to every Labour man who has ever climbed. Paul Fiske wrote the same thing only a few weeks ago. He thought that it was the social atmosphere which we still preserve around our politics. We no sooner catch a clever man, born of the people, than we dress him up like a mummy and put him down at dinner parties and garden parties, to do things he's not accustomed to, and expect him to hold his own amongst people who are not his people. There is something poisonous about it."

"Aren't you all rather assuming," Stenson suggested drily, "that the Labour Party is the only party in politics worth considering?"

"If they knew their own strength," Catherine declared, "they would be the predominant party. Should you like to go to the polls to-day and fight for your seats against them?"

"Heaven forbid!" Mr. Stenson exclaimed. "But then we've made up our mind to one thing - no general election during the war.

Afterwards, I shouldn't be at all surprised if Unionists and Liberals and even Radicals didn't amalgamate and make one party."

"To fight Labour," Furley said grimly.

"To keep England great," Mr. Stenson replied. "You must remember that so far as any scheme or program which the Labour Party has yet disclosed, in this country or any other, they are preeminently selfish. England has mighty interests across the seas. A parish-council form of government would very soon bring disaster."

Julian glanced at the clock and rose to his feet.

"I don't want to hurry any one," he said, "but my father is rather a martinet about luncheon."

They all rose. Mr. Stenson turned to Julian.

"Will you go on with Miss Abbeway?" he begged. "I will catch up with you on the marshes. I want to have just a word with Furley."

Julian and his companion crossed the country road and passed through the gate opposite on to the rude track which led down almost to the sea.

"You are very interested in English labour questions, Miss Abbeway," he remarked, "considering that you are only half an Englishwoman."

"It isn't only the English labouring classes in whom I am interested," she replied impatiently. "It is the cause of the people throughout the whole of the world which in my small way I preach."

"Your own country," he continued, a little diffidently, "is scarcely a good advertisement for the cause of social reform."

Her tone trembled with indignation as she answered him.

同类推荐
  • 众经目录序

    众经目录序

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说阿阇世王女阿术达菩萨经

    佛说阿阇世王女阿术达菩萨经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 骊宫高-美天子重惜

    骊宫高-美天子重惜

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 世范

    世范

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Letters to Malthus

    Letters to Malthus

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 天骨师

    天骨师

    杨俊梅笑,雪正下的孤冷,梅花开的炸艳……
  • 繁华那年遇见你

    繁华那年遇见你

    那年遇见你,是我的幸运;如今爱上他,是我一生的意外。你总说爱不是强留,但没有强硬的爱,还是爱吗?我的一生的意外都是因为你……我不担心你的离开,但我害怕会再也见不到你!
  • 穿越尽是繁华落殇

    穿越尽是繁华落殇

    青春总想着轰轰烈烈,想在旅行中遇见美好,却没想到遇见了另一个世界,王公贵族不再是电视剧里的情节,‘撞脸’‘公主’‘将军’‘皇上’这些词汇似乎成了家常便饭,没有所谓的天才智商,更没有口若悬河的能力,自认平庸无奇,何昭昭在这样的世界里,究竟会有怎样的青春?当幻想变成人生,会是想要的生活吗?当越踏越深,会变成痴心妄想吗?不知是想要的轰轰烈烈吗?还是凄凄惨惨戚戚......
  • 中国大谋略家的故事

    中国大谋略家的故事

    中华民族是一个有悠久历史的文明古国,在这个漫漫的历史长河中,为了中华民族的发展和兴旺,一批批优秀人物前赴后继,不懈努力,才换来了我们今天的幸福生活。
  • 一世不了情

    一世不了情

    一直在等一个人,一直在等一个回头,一直在等一份笑容,终于等到我自己都没了笑容。可是为什么,我向左走,向右走,还是走不出爱你的圆。哭累了,沉默了,想放弃了,冷淡了,可是时间一过,却又开始想念你……
  • 智读毛泽东诗词

    智读毛泽东诗词

    红色经典:智读毛泽东诗词》一书,近日由中共党史出版社出版。60多首脍炙人口的毛泽东诗词加以哲学层面的智慧解读。在感悟诗词崇高而超凡的理念世界的同时,体会诗词的精神内涵,将伟人恢弘的革命气势、浪漫的革命情怀和生动的革命气质用全新感受表达出来,继而展现了深刻而独到的分析和辩证而睿智的思考。
  • 洞窟幽灵

    洞窟幽灵

    这是一个充满神秘色彩的故事,故事从夜间庆典和圣徒献身开始,三个部落间的血亲仇杀一触即发,曾经是那样智慧和勇敢的本尼西为和平而四处奔走九死一生,却几次陷入绝望。“洞窟幽灵”显现了!那幽灵是谁?血腥局面最终能否制止?
  • 强宠,丫头你往哪逃

    强宠,丫头你往哪逃

    一次好心之举却将她推向命运的转折点她的生命本是平凡到再不能平凡的,却未料到被不平凡的人注意了。。。。。。三年后。。。。。。她已经有了相爱的人,稳定的工作,然而他……却变的不那么甘心了他情不自禁的出现在任何她在的地方,然而她一次次的忽视他,忘记他。他终于忍无可忍,一手毁了她苦苦坚持的幸福,将她囚于身边她恼过,哭过,逃过,然而……然而冥冥之中也许已经注定。。。。。。他眸中怒火早已隐藏不住,冷冷道:“这是要往哪去呢?”她闻声吓的一个激灵,手一松那车票就飘到他脚边去了。他弯身拾起看了一眼,放在手心一握那票就毁了,皱巴巴的一个小团子,他毫不犹豫将那小团子抛向一旁的垃圾桶。眼看着大好的机会没了,瞪着眼睛直视他,这丫一生气连怕都忘了。“你凭什么毁了我的票!你赔,你赔!”对着他的胸口就是一顿乱捶。他不理她,她更加肆无忌惮起来“老流氓,老混蛋!你变态!”————懒得和她继续纠缠,扛起来就往出口走。他这心里的火还有一半没消呢,不回去帮他消火就行了?!强娶篇她颤抖的坐在医院的凳子上,握着手里的病历排着队:宝宝竟然在她肚子里了,就这样拿掉她或他吗?她觉得自己真的很残忍,可是她不想做个未婚妈妈。。。。。。他捏着拳头悄悄站在她身后看着她,等着她的决定。终于到她了,她拖着已经抖的无力的腿朝手术室走去。他眯着眼睛看着她起步向那里走去,一个箭步向前一把将她抱起离开!这小东西真当他的孩子是垃圾了?她想拿掉就拿掉?!他同意了?!在她开口前冷冷道出两个字:“结婚!”她惊愕的看着他道:“我没有同意啊。。。。。。”不同意?他的决定什么时候由得她说不就不了?!(温馨宠文)
  • 正一法文经章官品

    正一法文经章官品

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 心尖独宠:高冷总裁住隔壁

    心尖独宠:高冷总裁住隔壁

    爱与恨交织纠缠着,是豪门,更是商战,他们在恨的力量中各自成长,在爱的力量下各自强大,恨让人疯狂,爱让人发狂!!他是商界的王,俯瞰一切,冷酷残忍。她不小心撞进了他的世界,他危险的气息将她笼罩:“既然闯进来了,就别想逃!”