That evening, when Alan, having had his fill of billiards, had left the smoking-room and gone to bed, Felix remarked to Stanley: 

“I say, what sort of people are these Mallorings?”

Stanley, who was settling himself for the twenty minutes of whiskey, potash, and a Review, with which he commonly composed his mind before retiring, answered negligently: 

“The Mallorings?  Oh! about the best type of landowner we’ve got.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

Stanley took his time to answer, for below his bluff good-nature he had the tenacious, if somewhat slow, precision of an English man of business, mingled with a certain mistrust of ‘old Felix.’

“Well,” he said at last, “they build good cottages, yellow brick, d—­d ugly, I must say; look after the character of their tenants; give ’em rebate of rent if there’s a bad harvest; encourage stock-breedin’, and machinery—­they’ve got some of my ploughs, but the people don’t like ’em, and, as a matter of fact, they’re right—­ they’re not made for these small fields; set an example goin’ to church; patronize the Rifle Range; buy up the pubs when they can, and run ’em themselves; send out jelly, and let people over their place on bank holidays.  Dash it all, I don’t know what they don’t do.  Why?”

“Are they liked?”

“Liked?  No, I should hardly think they were liked; respected, and all that.  Malloring’s a steady fellow, keen man on housing, and a gentleman; she’s a bit too much perhaps on the pious side.  They’ve got one of the finest Georgian houses in the country.  Altogether they’re what you call ‘model.’”

“But not human.”

Stanley slightly lowered the Review and looked across it at his brother.  It was evident to him that ‘old Felix’ was in one of his free-thinking moods.

“They’re domestic,” he said, “and fond of their children, and pleasant neighbors.  I don’t deny that they’ve got a tremendous sense of duty, but we want that in these days.”

“Duty to what?”

Stanley raised his level eyebrows.  It was a stumper.  Without great care he felt that he would be getting over the border into the uncharted land of speculation and philosophy, wandering on paths that led him nowhere.

“If you lived in the country, old man,” he said, “you wouldn’t ask that sort of question.”

“You don’t imagine,” said Felix, “that you or the Mallorings live in the country?  Why, you landlords are every bit as much town dwellers as I am—­thought, habit, dress, faith, souls, all town stuff.  There is no ‘country’ in England now for us of the ’upper classes.’  It’s gone.  I repeat:  Duty to what?”

And, rising, he went over to the window, looking out at the moonlit lawn, overcome by a sudden aversion from more talk.  Of what use were words from a mind tuned in one key to a mind tuned in another?  And yet, so ingrained was his habit of discussion, that he promptly went on: