"Perhaps so. Why not? Anyhow, it’s no good talkin’ about it. People who starve have only themselves to blame. Haven’t they hands to work? Show me a poor man, and you’ll point to a fool. That’s truth, too, if it isn’t an epigram! Everyone with wits can get a good living if he likes. And if not--well, let those who can’t get take; that’s my motto. I’m no high-priest of ordinary morality, I can tell you. But--look, Sir Gussie’s won again! George! the luck of that fellow! Let me come; I must put a yellow boy on _impair_." The yellow boy was not at once put on, for a climax had come. A charge of cheating was shrieked out by an excited woman playing bridge. Chaos came again. Men and women sprang to their feet to look, and crowded to the centre of trouble. There were words of eager accusation, of fierce denial, of hot anger. A table was overturned. Gold tinkled to the floor. Two women--those chiefly concerned--had almost passed beyond words. It seemed, so agitated were they, and so fierce their looks as they glared at each other, as if they would actually be fighting; but cooler counsels urgently intervened, and the disputants were led away, each grasping her stakes or winnings, each still making angry assertions. For a little while the inherent vulgarity of the company had violently broken out; it had set at defiance the thin varnish of conventional politeness most of them wore. Geoffrey turned, and pushed his way out of the room, out of the house. A cold breeze blew on his forehead. The stars were shining. "Never again!" was his resolution. "Never, never again!" At that moment the prig in him finally went. He was humble now and burningly sincere. He realized his personal responsibility. In the future it must be his duty, in and out of Parliament, to modify the hideous inequality that had been exemplified that night. To have this waste, idleness, and vulgarity--this undisturbed triumph of Moloch and Mammon--by the side of extreme want and its manifold iniquities, was preposterous, humiliating, intolerable. The matter must be mended, if that could be. He would devote his years to the business. But how to touch those extravagant idlers, the mischievous human butterflies, the Smart Set? Ah, how? Dawn had succeeded night. Its greyness was shrinking under the promise of the sun. The Park gates were being opened as he came to them. He passed in to walk over the grass, preferring to return that way to Armingham House while his brain strove and wrestled with teeming problems. Sudden inexplicable happiness seized him. He felt momentary lightness of heart. His mood of depression went. He felt surprisingly hopeful. There must be a fine ending to all these quandaries. But why was he so hopeful? He could not tell. The reason was sufficiently simple. June, in her hour of deepest gloom, was encouraged by the sight of the fairies; and her joy at seeing them there had permeated--had glorified--him.