Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/180

172 He entered the park grounds by a side-gate and was soon on the terrace. There he saw Arminell returning to the house from her stroll in the avenue.

"Mr. Saltren," she said, "have you also been enjoying the beauty of the night?"

"I have been trying to cool the fever within," he replied.

"I hope," she said, misunderstanding him, "that you have not caught the influenza, or whatever it is from Giles."

"I have taken nothing from Giles. The fever I speak of is not physical."

"Oh! you are still thinking of what we discussed over the Noah's Ark."

"Yes—how can I help it? I who am broken and trodden on at every moment."

"I am sorry to hear you say this, Mr. Saltren. I also have been talking the matter over with papa, and after he went in, I have been walking up and down under the trees meditating on it—but I get no farther, for all my thinking."

"Miss Inglett," said Jingles, "the time of barley-mows is at an end. Hitherto we have had the oats, and the wheat, and the rye, and the clover, and the meadow-grass ricked, stacked separately. All that is of the past. The age of the stack-yard is over with its several distinct classified ricks—this is wheat, that is rye; this is clover, that damaged hay. We are now entering an age of Silo, and inevitably as feudalism is done away with, so will the last relics of distinctions be swept aside also, and we shall all enter an universal and common silo."

"I do not think I quite understand you."

"Henceforth all mankind will make one, all contribute to the common good, all be pressed together and the individuality of one pass to become the property of all."

Arminell shook her head and laughed.

"I confess that I find great sweetness in the old