‘Tell Nataly that,’ said Victor.  ’And tell her about Dartrey.  Harp on it.  Once she was all for him and our girl.  But it’s a woman—­though the dearest!  I defy any one to hit on the cause of their changes.  We must make the best of things, if we’re for swimming.  The task for me to-night will be, to keep from rolling out all I’ve got in my head.  And I’m not revolutionary, I’m for stability.  Only I do see, that the firm stepping-place asks for a long stride to be taken.  One can’t get the English to take a stride—­unless it’s for a foot behind them:  bother old Colney!  Too timid, or too scrupulous, down we go into the mire.  There!—­But I want to say it!  I want to save the existing order.  I want, Christianity, instead of the Mammonism we ’re threatened with.  Great fortunes now are becoming the giants of old to stalk the land:  or mediaeval Barons.  Dispersion of wealth, is the secret.  Nataly’s of that mind with me.  A decent poverty!  She’s rather wearying, wants a change.  I’ve a steam-yacht in my eye, for next month on the Mediterranean.  All our set.  She likes quiet.  I believe in my political recipe for it.’

He thumped on a method he had for preserving aristocracy—­true aristocracy, amid a positively democratic flood of riches.

‘It appears to me, you’re on the road of Priscilla Graves and Pempton,’ observed Simeon.  ’Strike off Priscilla’s viands and friend Pempton’s couple of glasses, and there’s your aristocracy established; but with rather a dispersed recognition of itself.’

‘Upon my word, you talk like old Colney, except for a twang of your own,’ said Victor.  ’Colney sours at every fresh number of that Serial.  The last, with Delphica detecting the plot of Falarique, is really not so bad.  The four disguised members of the Comedie Francaise on board the vessel from San Francisco, to declaim and prove the superior merits of the Gallic tongue, jumped me to bravo the cleverness.  And Bobinikine turning to the complexion of the remainder of cupboard dumplings discovered in an emigrant’s house-to-let!  And Semhians—­I forget what and Mytharete’s forefinger over the bridge of his nose, like a pensive vulture on the skull of a desert camel!  But, I complain, there’s nothing to make the English love the author; and it’s wasted, he’s basted, and the book ‘ll have no sale.  I hate satire.’

‘Rough soap for a thin skin, Victor.  Does it hurt our people much?’

‘Not a bit; doesn’t touch them.  But I want my friends to succeed!’

Their coming upon Westminster Bridge changed the theme.  Victor wished the Houses of Parliament to catch the beams of sunset.  He deferred to the suggestion, that the Hospital’s doing so seemed appropriate.