ving seen her for some
time. And I saw her again as I had often seen her in the past--a greedy,
lazy, spoilt child, determined to take and keep the best out of life,
and, if possible, pay nothing for it. A profiteer, as much as the fat
little match manufacturer, her uncle, who was talking to Hobart, and in
whom I saw a resemblance to the twins. And I saw too Jane's queer, lazy,
casual charm, that had caught and held Hobart and weaned him from the
feminine graces and obviousnesses of Clare.

Hobart stood near Jane, quiet and agreeable and good-looking. A
second-rate chap, running a third-rate paper. Jane had married him, for
all her clear-headed intellectual scorn of the second-rate, because she
was second-rate herself, and didn't really care.

And there was little Pinkerton chatting with Northcliffe, his rival and
friend, and Lady Pinkerton boring a high Foreign Office official very
nearly to yawns, and Clare Potter, flushed and gallantly gay, flitting
about from person to person (Clare was always restless; she had none of
Jane's phlegm and stolidity), and Johnny, putting in a fairly amusing
time with his own friends and acquaintances, and Frank Potter talking
to Juke about his new parish. Frank, discontented all the war because
he couldn't get out to France without paying the price that Juke had
paid, was satisfied with life for the moment, having just been given a
fashionable and rich London living, where many hundreds weekly sat
under him and heard him preach. Juke wasn't the member of that crowd I
should personally have selected to discuss fashionable and overpaid
livings with, had I just accepted one, but they were the only two
parsons in the room, so I suppose Potter thought it appropriate, I
overheard pleased fragments such as 'Twenty thousand communicants ...
only standing-room at Sunday evensong,' which indicated that the new
parish was a great success.

'That poor chap,' Jukie said to me afterwards. 'He's in a wretched
position. He has to profess Christianity, and he doesn't want even to try
to live up to it. At least, whenever he has a flash of desire to, that
atheist wife of his puts it out. She's the worst sort of atheist--the
sort that says her prayers regularly. Why are parsons allowed to marry?
Or if they must, why can't their wives be chosen for them by a special
board? And what, in Heaven's name, came over a Potter that he should take
Orders? The fight between Potterism and Christianity--it's the fun