“It is not in the least inconvenient,” said Clare, with her stateliest look; and she seated herself, and offered them tea. But she did not look again at her cousin. She addressed herself to his companion, and asked a hundred questions about his meeting, and all that had been discussed at it. Lord Newmarch was not in the least disinclined to communicate all the information she could desire. He sipped his tea, and he talked with that surprised sense of pleasure and satisfaction which the sudden discovery of a good listener conveys. He stood over her, his tea-cup in his hand, with the light, which was not positive sunshine, but a soft reflection of the blaze without thrown from a great mirror, glimmering on his spectacles as it did on the china--and expounded everything. “It was a very inconvenient time,” he said, “but fortunately nothing very important was going on, and I was so fortunate as to secure a pair. So I do not feel that I have neglected one part of my duty in pursuing another. This was the most convenient moment for our foreign friends. The fact is, all great questions affecting the people should be treated internationally. That has long been my theory. Politics are a different thing; but social questions--questions which affect the morality and the comfort of the entire human race----” “But the measures which suit one portion of the race might not suit another,” said Clare, who was intensely British. “I don’t think I have any confidence in things that come from abroad.” “Except brothers,” said Arthur Arden, almost below his breath. Nobody heard him but Clare. It was said for her, with the intention of establishing that private intercourse which can run on in the midst of the most general conversation. But Clare had set herself stoutly against any such indulgence. “Except brothers,” she said calmly, as if the observation had been her own. “That is exactly my own way of thinking,” said the social philosopher, “but are not we all brothers? Am not I identical with my cousin in France and my brother in America so far as all social necessities are considered? I require to be washed, and clothed, and fed, and taken care of exactly as they do. We will never have a thorough and effectual system till we all work together. Though I am a Liberal in politics, I am not at all against the employment of force in a legitimate way. If I will not keep myself clean of my own accord, I believe I ought to be compelled to do it--not for my own sake, but because I become a nuisance to my neighbours. If I do not educate my children as I ought, I should be compelled to do. There are a great many things, more than are thought of in our philosophy, which ought to be compulsory. The individual is all very well, and we have done a great deal for him; but now something must be done for the race.”