ns, no! Artists--and judges--together. The gate of art is a
deal straiter than the gate of Heaven."

Boden caught Victoria's laugh.

"Let him alone," he said, indulgently. "His is the only aristocracy I can
stand--with apologies to my hostess."

"Oh, we're done for," said Victoria, quietly.

Boden turned a humorous eye, first to the great house basking in the
sunshine, then to his hostess.

"Not yet. But you're doomed. As the old Yorkshireman said to his son,
when they were watching the triumphs of a lion-tamer in the travelling
menagerie--that 'genelman's to be wooried _soom_ day.' When the real
Armageddon comes, it'll not find you in possession. _You'll_ have gone
down long before."

"Really? Then who will be in possession?" asked Gerald Tatham, a very
perceptible sneer in his disagreeable voice. He disliked Boden as one of
"the infernal Radicals" whom Victoria would inflict on the sacred
precincts of Duddon, but he was generally afraid of him in conversation.

"Merely the rich"--the tone was still nonchalant--"the Haves against the
Haven'ts. No nonsense left, by that time, about 'blood' and 'family.'
Society will have dropped all those little trimmings and embroideries.
We shall have come to the naked fundamental things."

"The struggle of rich and poor?" said Delorme. "Precisely. That's what
all you fellows who go and preach revolution to dockers are after. And
what on earth would the world do without wealth? Wealth is only
materialized intelligence! What's wrong with it?"

"Only that we're dying of it."

The young man paused. He sat silently smoking, his eyes--unseeing--fixed
upon the house. Lucy Manisty looked at him with sympathy.

"You mean," she said, "that no one who has the power to be rich has now
ever the courage to be poor?"

He nodded, and turning to her he continued in a lower voice: "And
think what's lost! Are we _all_ to be smothered in this paraphernalia
of servants, and motor cars and gluttonous living? There's scarcely a
man--for instance--among my friends who'll dare to marry! Hundreds used
to be enough--now they must have thousands--or say their wives must. And
they'll sell their souls to get the thousands. Who's the better--who's
the happier for it in the end? We have left ourselves nothing to love
with--nothing to be happy with. What does natural beauty--or human
feeling--matter to the men who spend their days speculating in the City?
I know 'em. I have watched some of them for yea