The Whirlpool | Page 9

the parents know nothing about them till they're ten or twelve years old. They're a burden, a hindrance, a perpetual source of worry and misery. Most wives are sacrificed to the next generation -- an outrageous absurdity. People snivel over the deaths of babies; I see nothing to grieve about. If a child dies, why, the probabilities are it ought to die; if it lives, it lives, and you get survival of the fittest. We don't want to choke the world with people, most of them rickety and wheezing; let us be healthy, and have breathing space.'
'I believe in that,' said Carnaby.
'You're going away, then. Where to?'
'That's the point,' replied Hugh, moving uneasily. 'You see, with Sibyl --. I have suggested Davos. Some people she knows are there -- girls who go in for tobogganing, and have a good time. But Sibyl's afraid of the cold. I can't convince her that it's nothing to what we endure here in the beastliness of a London winter. She hates the thought of ice and snow and mountains. A great pity; it would do her no end of good. I suppose we must go to the Riviera.'
He shrugged his shoulders, and for a moment there was silence.
'By-the-bye,' he resumed, 'I have a letter from Miles, and you'd like to see it.'
From a pile of letters on the table he selected one written on two sheets of thin paper, and handed it to Rolfe. The writing was bold, the style vigorous, the matter fresh and interesting. Major Carnaby had no graces of expression; but all the more engrossing was his brief narrative of mountain warfare, declaring its truthfulness in every stroke of the pen.
'Fine fellow!' exclaimed Rolfe, when he had read to the end. 'Splendid fellow!'
'Isn't he! And he's seeing life.'
'That's where you ought to be, my boy,' remarked Rolfe, between puffs of tobacco.
'I dare say. No use thinking about it. Too late.'
'If I had a son,' pursued Harvey, smiling at the hypothesis, 'I think I'd make a fighting man of him, or try to. At all events, he should go out somewhere, and beat the big British drum, one way or another. I believe it's our only hope. We're rotting at home -- some of us sunk in barbarism, some coddling themselves in over-refinement. What's the use of preaching peace and civilisation, when we know that England's just beginning her big fight -- the fight that will put all history into the shade! We have to lead the world; it's our destiny; and we must do it by breaking heads. That's the nature of the human animal, and will be for ages to come.'
Carnaby nodded assent.
'If we were all like your brother,' Rolfe went on. 'I'm glad he's fighting in India, and not in Africa. I can't love the buccaneering shopkeeper, the whisky-distiller with a rifle -- ugh!'
'I hate that kind of thing. The gold grubbers and diamond bagmen! But it's part of the march onward. We must have money, you know.'
The speaker's forehead wrinkled, and again he moved uneasily. Rolfe regarded him with a reflective air.
'That man you saw here tonight,' Carnaby went on, 'the short, thick fellow -- his name is Dando -- he's just come back from Queensland. I don't quite know what he's been doing, but he evidently knows a good deal about mines. He says he has invented a new process for getting gold out of ore -- I don't know anything about it. In the early days of mining, he says, no end of valuable stuff was abandoned, because they couldn't smelt it. Something about pyrites -- I have a vague recollection of old chemistry lessons. Dando wants to start smelting works for his new process, somewhere in North Queensland.'
'And wants money, I dare say,' remarked the listener, with a twinkle of the eye.
'I suppose so. It was Carton that brought him here for the first time, a week ago. Might be worth thinking about, you know.'
'I have no opinion. My profound ignorance of everything keeps me in a state of perpetual scepticism. It has its advantages, I dare say.'
'You're very conservative, Rolfe, in your finance.'
'Very.'
'Quite right, no doubt. Could you join us at Nice or some such place?'
'Why, I rather thought of sticking to my books. But if the fogs are very bad --'
'And you would seriously advise us to give up the house?'
'My dear fellow, how can you hesitate? Your wife is quite right; there's not one good word to be said for the ordinary life of an English household. Flee from it! Live anywhere and anyhow, but don't keep house in England. Wherever I go, it's the same cry: domestic life is played out. There isn't a servant to be had -- unless you're a Duke and breed them on your own estate. All