Phyllis of Philistia Part 14

Herbert Courtland had not yet opened it. He took it from her, saying:

"Thank you, Miss Ayrton. But I really don't see that it concerns me very much whether or not the charges brought against me are true or false.

The matter is certainly one for the--the--ah--_Spiritual Aneroid_ and its special _clientele_."

"But a question is to be asked about it in the House of Commons. I said so just now," cried Phyllis.

"And even the House of Commons doesn't matter much," said Ella.

"That is what papa thought," said Phyllis meekly. "Only I know that if Mr. Courtland thought it worth noticing, papa would be quite pleased to put a counter question. That is why I came here to-day."

"It was so good of you," said the man.

"My Phyllis is all that is good. Let us return to the drawing room,"

said Ella, rising.

They returned to the drawing room; but when they had been in the apartment for perhaps four minutes, certainly not five, Phyllis said it was necessary for her to hurry home in order that the afternoon letters should be sent to her father at the House.

With another word of appreciation of her kindness, Mr. Courtland held her hand a second longer than was absolutely necessary to maintain a character for civility.

"She is the most charming girl in the world," remarked Ella to the visitor, who remained when Phyllis had left.

"Is she?" said he.

"I know it. Don't you?" asked she.

"How do I know?" he said. "I have thought nothing about it. If you say she is charming, I am pleased to hear it. It matters no more to me that the world is full of charming girls than that the kraken is still at the bottom of the sea. One woman fills all my thoughts. My heart is full of her."

"And you want her to risk the salvation of her soul for you?"

"Yes; that is just what I want."

He remained with her for another hour.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE HONORABLE MEMBER IS CLEARLY OUT OF ORDER.

Mr. Ayrton met his daughter the next morning with the good news that he had found among his specimen cases of phrases, one that would effectually silence the member from Wales who had been nominated by the Nonconformist Eastern Missionary Society to put that question to the minister of the Annexation Department on the subject of Mr. Courtland, the explorer. Mr. Ayrton was the better pleased at his discovery, because of the inoffensive nature of the phrase which he had taken out of its case, so to speak. As a rule, he did not mind being offensive if only his phrase was apt. Only people who had no artistic appreciation found fault with the tone of some of his most notable phrases. He did not mind whether they were just or unjust, they said. As if a man can be both honest and witty at the same time!

It so happened, however, that the party to which Mr. Ayrton belonged had become greatly concerned in respect of an element that had just come to the surface to still further complicate the course of politics. This was the Nonconformist Conscience--hitherto a _quant.i.te negligeable_ in the calculations of the leaders, but now one that it appeared absolutely necessary to take into account as a factor. To be sure, there were a good many people who put their tongues in their cheeks when any mention was made of the Nonconformist Conscience: they said it was no more to be taken seriously than the Spector on the Brocken or the Athanasian Creed.

It was only the trick of an electioneering agent desirous of escaping from an untenable position.

There were other persons, however (mostly Nonconformists), who were found ready to declare that the Nonconformist Conscience was a Great and Living Truth. The only point upon which statesmen of all parties were agreed was that it was worth purchasing. The Nonconformists themselves, upon whom the Great and Living Truth was sprung, had no notion at first that it could be turned into a negotiable security occupying as high a place in the market as, say, Argentine bonds. But it did not take them very long to find out that even an abstraction such as this could be turned to good account by discreet maneuvering. Truth sometimes is heard on an election platform, and yet truth is but an abstract quality. Why, then should not a Great and Living Truth become a regular gold mine to its inventor? It was as great an invention as the art of electroplating, which it closely resembled, and a quite as nice thing could be made out of it by a little dexterous manipulation. If the conscience is silver, the Nonconformist Conscience is at least electroplate of a first-cla.s.s quality, it was argued; and a political manifesto, which was practically a financial prospectus, was issued with a view of floating the Nonconformist Conscience Company, Limited.

English politics cannot by any possibility be regarded as an exact science; and thus it was that all political parties were at this time making bids for shares in the enterprise. The leaders of one party, in fact, expressed themselves ready to buy up the whole concern, and they actually tendered bills payable at twelve months for all the vendors'

interest, and it was only when these bills became due and were returned dishonored that the shadowy character of the transaction was made plain, and the country was convulsed at the disclosure of the fact that the vendors had disposed of a perfectly worthless invention, and that the purchasers had paid for it by promises that were equally worthless.

All this happened later, however; when the fuss was made about the atrocities by an explorer in New Guinea, and Mr. Ayrton was contemplating a counter question that should cast ridicule upon the missionaries and their champion, he was given to understand by the leaders of his party, who, it was believed, had a small parcel of baronetcies done up in official twine, with blank s.p.a.ces for the name and address in each, awaiting distribution at the first change of Government, that he must take no step that might jeopardize the relations of the party with the vendors of the Nonconformists Conscience. The _Spiritual Aneroid_ was the leading Nonconformist organ, and it would not do to sneer at the missionaries whom it supported. It would be better that all the explorers who had ever risked their lives on behalf of civilization should go by the board than that a single vote should be lost to the party, he was a.s.sured by the Senior Whip.

This was rather irritating to the artist in phrases; because it stood to reason that the majority of his phrases were calculated to be hurtful to his opponents. He was thus quite elated when he came upon something which would, he felt sure, call comment in the press at the expense of the member from Wales without casting any slight upon Nonconformist Missionary enterprise.

He read out the thing to his daughter, and he was surprised to find that she was not appreciative of its unique charm. This was rather too bad, he felt, considering that it was she who had enlisted his services in this particular matter.

"I don't think Mr. Courtland wants anybody to take his part in Parliament or out of it," said she. "And that's why I think it would be better to let that Mr. Apthomas ask his question without interruption.

What can the Minister of Annexation say except that he has no information on the subject, and that if he had he could not interfere, as he had no jurisdiction on the Fly River?"

"That is what he will reply as a matter of course," said her father.

"But that will not prevent the newspapers that are on the side of Wales and the missionaries from saying what they please in the way of comment on the atrocities in New Guinea."

"Mr. Courtland will not mind whatever they may say," cried Phyllis.

"That was the view I took of the matter in regard to Mr. Courtland's att.i.tude when you mentioned it to me at first," said he. "I didn't suppose that he was the man to be broken down because some foolish paper attacks him; but you were emphatic in your denunciation of the injustice that would be liable to be done if--"

"Oh, I had only spoken for about half an hour to Mr. Courtland then,"

said Phyllis. "I think I know him better now."

"Yes, you have spoken with him for another half hour; you therefore know him twice as well as you did," remarked her father. "I wonder if he admitted to you having done all that he was accused of doing."

He saw in a moment from the little uneasy movement of her eyes that he had made an excellent guess at the general result of the conversation at Mrs. Linton's little lunch. He had not yet succeeded in obtaining any details from his daughter regarding her visit to Ella. She had merely told him that Ella had kept her to lunch, and that Mr. Courtland had been there also.

"Yes. I do believe that he admitted everything," he continued, with a laugh as he thought how clever he was. (He had frequent reasons for laughing that laugh.)

"No," said Phyllis doubtfully; "he did not admit everything."

"There was some reservation? Perhaps it was melinite that he employed for the ma.s.sacre of the innocents of New Guinea, not dynamite."

"No; it was dynamite. But the natives had stolen it from his steam launch and they exploded it themselves."

Mr. Ayrton lay back in his chair convulsed with laughter.

"And that is the true story of the dynamite ma.s.sacre?" he cried. "That is how it comes that, in the words of the _Aneroid_, the works of evangelization on Nonconformist principles is likely to be r.e.t.a.r.ded for some time? The missionaries are quite right too. And what about his miracles--they suggested a miracle, didn't they?"

"Oh, that was some foolishness about setting spirits of wine on fire,"

said Phyllis. "The natives thought that it was water, you know."

Mr. Ayrton laughed more heartily than before.

"That is the crowning infamy," he cried. "My dear Phyllis, it would be quite impossible to allow so delicious a series of missionary muddles to pa.s.s unnoticed. I think I see my way clearly in the matter."

She knew that he did. She knew that he regarded most incidents in the political world merely as feeders to his phrase-making capacity. She knew that it would be impossible to repress him now in the matter of Courtland and the missionaries; she fully realized the feelings of Frankenstein.

Only the weakest protest did she make against her father's intended action; and thus when the day came for Mr. Apthomas' question, that gentleman from Wales inquired, "If Her Majesty's Minister for Annexations could give the House any information regarding the so-called explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland in the island of New Guinea, particularly in respect of a ma.s.sacre of natives by dynamite in the region of the Fly River; and if it was true that the gentleman just named had permitted himself to be wors.h.i.+ped as a G.o.d by the aborigines of another region; and if Her Majesty's Minister for Domestic Affairs was prepared to say that it was legal for one of Her Majesty's subjects to a.s.sume the privileges and functions of a G.o.d, and if the First Lord of the Treasury was prepared to communicate to the House what course, if any, Her Majesty's government meant to adopt with a view to the prevention of similar outrages in the same region in the future?"

Mr. Ayrton rose before the Minister of the Annexation Department had quite concluded his yawn, and said he trusted that he was in order (cries of "Yes, yes," from those members who knew that the honorable member had an enlivening phrase which he wanted to get rid of) in inquiring, in connection with the same subject, if the right honorable gentleman could inform the House if there was any truth in the report current in financial and other circles that the object of the explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland was the discovery of a small mammal of the porcine tribe, and if one of the Law Officers of the Crown was prepared to a.s.sure the House that it would be contrary to the provisions of the Companies Act, and the Companies Act Amendment Act, to permit this New Guinea pig to a.s.sume the functions of the director of Limited Liability Companies, whose directorate was largely composed of members of both Houses of Parliament (great laughter from honorable gentlemen who were aware that the Mr. Apthomas had no income beyond the remuneration he received as a director of companies); and if Her Majesty's Minister for Agriculture was prepared to state that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to prohibit the introduction of, at any rate the males of the mammals just referred to, considering the rapid increase in representative a.s.semblies of the English or Welsh bore----(Great laughter, which prevented the concluding words of the sentence being audible in the gallery.)

THE SPEAKER: Order! order! The honorable member for Hazelborough must confine himself strictly to the issued raised by the honorable gentleman from Wales. The honorable member for Hazelborough is only permitted to follow the honorable gentleman from Wales by the indulgence of the House.