Mr. Hanbury-Green had not a sufficiently strong answer ready, so remained loftily silent, while John Derringham went on: 

“We obscure every issue nowadays by a sickly sentiment and this craze for words to prove black is white in order to please the mediocrity.  If we could only look facts in the face we should see that the idea of equality of all men is perfectly ridiculous.  No ancient republic ever worked, even the most purely democratic, like the Athenian, of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., without an unconsidered and unrepresented population of slaves.  You know your Aristotle, Mr. Green,” he went on blandly, “and you will remember his admirable remark about some men being born masters and others born to obey, and that, if only Nature had made the difference in their mental capacities as apparent to the eye as is the difference in their bodies, everyone would recognize this at once.”

His voice grew intense:  the subject interested him.

“You may say,” he went on, “that Aristotle, Plato and Socrates accepted the fact of slavery without protest because it was an institution from time immemorial, and so the idea did not appear to them so repugnant.  But do you mean to tell me that such consummate geniuses, such unbiased glorious brains would have glossed over any idea, or under-considered any point in their schemes for the advancement of man?  They accepted slavery because they saw that it was the only possible way to make a republic work, where all citizens might aspire to be equal.”

“You would advocate slavery then?  Oh!  Mr. Derringham, how dreadful of you!” exclaimed Mrs. Cricklander, half playfully.

“Not in the least,” he returned, still allowing some feeling to stay in his voice.  “I would only have it recognized that there must be some class in my ideal republic who will do the duties of the slaves of old.  I would have it so arranged that they should occupy this class only when they had shown they were unfit for anything higher, and I would also arrange it that the moment they appeared capable of rising out of it there should be no bar to their doing so.  It is the cry of our all being equal because we have two arms and two legs and a head in common, not counting any mental endowment, which is utter trash and hypocrisy.  But when these agitators are shouting for the people’s rights and inciting poor ignorant wretches to revolt, they never suggest that the lowest of them is not perfectly suited to the highest position!  Those occupying any station above the lowest have got there merely by superior luck and favoritism, not merit—­that is what they preach.”

Mr. Hanbury-Green was just going to answer with a biting attack when Miss Cora Lutworth’s rather high voice was heard interrupting from a tall old chair in which she had perched herself.

“Why, Mr. Derringham, we all want to be something very grand,” she laughed merrily.  “I hate common people and love English dukes and duchesses—­don’t you, Cis?” and she looked at Mrs. Cricklander, who was standing in a position of much stately grace by the lofty mantelpiece.