The Earl, leaning on a porphyry column, gazed at his surroundings. He was struck by the loveliness and simplicity around him; the red-brocaded panels had vanished from the walls, and left the plain white wainscot, which of course had been repainted; all superficial luxury was gone, only a few lovely Louis XVI. tables remained in the room, whilst a few gold-caned settees were scattered about, and at right angles stood a few pink and black marble lounges. “Danford, look at that woman over there talking to Tom Hornsby; whoever she may be, she has already acquired a firmness of footing, a single-mindedness of posture that really delights me. Still, Dan—no Gwendolen!” “You seem to be very anxious about her, my lord. I heard last night from several lady guides, that many of the girls engaged last season could not bring themselves to meet the men they had chosen. You can hardly believe that the same girl who, a few weeks ago, fearlessly exposed all her moral ugliness and mental deficiency, could blush to-day at the idea of allowing her ‘_fiancé_’ to see her as God made her.” “Do not remind me of that Inferno, Dan; you, my Virgil, must show me beauty, not disfigurement; purity, not indelicacy. But is this all we are able to do for ourselves?” and Lionel looked all around him. “We have no doubt arrived at a certain physical discipline. I grant you that the faddiest nincompoop has managed to pull himself together and could, at a stretch, run a chariot race with any champion of the Roman Empire. I also think that our social intercourse is taking a turn for the better; but you cannot deny that we are at a standstill. What is to happen next? We are completely isolated from the rest of the world; no one comes to England from abroad, since the storm, and no one goes out of the island.” “Ah! only a matter of false pride on the part of the Britishers, my lord, and as to the foreigners not coming to England at present, I should give no thought to that. They very probably believe us to be the prey of a Boer invasion, and by this time every nation is celebrating in all their churches the disappearance of the British Empire.” “You are always turning everything into a joke, my dear fellow; still, the problem remains the same: what are we going to do with our new state of nature? Then we have no newspapers! We know nothing of what is going on.” “I think, my lord, that newspapers told us more of what was not going on than anything else. We have written enough; let us think, now that we are condemned to a sort of isolation. Now is your chance, my lord, and for your party to solve the problem; for no one can really help you out of this but yourselves.” “You must not forget, Dick, that there are thousands of men and women without any work, owing to this breakdown of the factories. Those have to be thought of, or else we shall perish in an East-End invasion.”