Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/153

 Jack forced a wry smile. Mary was a chip of the old block. Such an uncompromising statement seemed at any rate to explain the force of her conviction upon this vexed subject.

"Excuse the freedom, sir," said the solemn Joe, "but you young nobs who keep on marrying out of your class are undermining the British Constitution. What's to become of law and order if you go on mixing things up in the way you are doing?"

The young man proceeded to do battle with the Philistine. But the weapons in his armory were none of the brightest with which to meet the crushing onset of the foe.

"It's no use, sir. As I say, the aristocracy's the aristocracy, the middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower orders are the lower orders—there they are and you can't alter 'em. You don't suppose I've reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years not to know that."

In the presence of such a conviction, the best of Jack's arguments seemed vain, futile and shallow. Fate had charged Joseph Kelly with the solemn duty of maintaining the fabric of society, and in his purview, no argument however cunning, could set that fact aside.

IV

While these two were still at grips, each meeting the arguments of the other with a sense of growing impatience, the cause of the trouble intervened. Mary came into the room, leading her mother by the hand. With the face of a sphinx followed Harriet.