Harassed, like a bear in a pit set upon by dogs, Lord Edward turned uneasily this way and that, pivoting his bent body from the loins. “But I’m not interested in pol …” He was too agitated to be able to finish the word.
“But even if you’re not interested in politics,” Webley persuasively continued, “you must be interested in your fortune, your position, the future of your family. Remember, all those things will go down in the general destruction.”
“Yes, but … No …” Lord Edward was growing desperate. “I … I’m not interested in money.”
Once, years before, the head of the firm of solicitors to whom he left the entire management of his affairs had called, in spite of Lord Edward’s express injunction that he was never to be troubled with matters of business, to consult his client about a matter of investments. There were some eighty thousand pounds to be disposed of. Lord Edward was dragged from the fundamental equations of the statics of living systems. When he learned the frivolous cause of the interruption, the ordinarily mild Old Man became unrecognizably angry. Mr. Figgis, whose voice was loud and whose manner confident, had been used, in previous interviews, to having things all his own way. Lord Edward’s fury astonished and appalled him. It was as though, in his rage, the Old Man had suddenly thrown back atavistically to the feudal past, had remembered that he was a Tantamount talking to a hired servant. He had given orders; they had been disobeyed and his privacy unjustifiably disturbed. It was insufferable. If this sort of thing should ever happen again, he would transfer his affairs to another solicitor. And with that he wished Mr. Figgis a very good afternoon.
“I’m not interested in money,” he now repeated.
Illidge, who had approached and was hovering in the neighbourhood, waiting for an opportunity to address the Old Man, overheard the remark and exploded with inward laughter. “These rich!” he thought. “These bloody rich!” They were all the same.
“But if not for your own sake,” Webley insisted, attacking from another quarter, “for the sake of civilization, of progress.”
Lord Edward started at the word. It touched a trigger, it released a flood of energy. “Progress!” he echoed and the tone of misery and embarrassment was exchanged for one of confidence. “Progress! You politicians are always talking about it. As though it were going to last. Indefinitely. More motors, more babies, more food, more advertising, more money, more everything, forever. You ought to take a few lessons in my subject. Physical biology. Progress, indeed! What do you propose to do about phosphorus, for example?” His question was a personal accusation.
“But all this is entirely beside the point,” said Webley impatiently.
“On the contrary,” retorted Lord Edward, “it’s the only point.” His voice had become loud and severe. He spoke with a much more than ordinary degree of coherence. Phosphorus had made a new man of him; he felt very strongly about phosphorus and, feeling strongly, he was strong. The worried bear had become the worrier. “With your intensive agriculture,” he went on, “you’re simply draining the soil of phosphorus. More than half of one percent a year. Going clean out of circulation. And then the way you throw away hundreds of thousands of tons of phosphorus pentoxide in your sewage! Pouring it into the sea. And you call that progress. Your modern sewage systems!” His tone was witheringly scornful. “You ought to be putting it back where it came from. On the land.” Lord Edward shook an admonitory finger and frowned. “On the land, I tell you.”
“But all this has nothing to do with me,” protested Webley.
“Then it ought to,” Lord Edward answered sternly. “That’s the trouble with you politicians. You don’t even think of the important things. Talking about progress and votes and Bolshevism and every year allowing a million tons of phosphorus pentoxide to run away into the sea. It’s idiotic, it’s criminal, it’s … it’s fiddling while Rome is burning.” He saw Webley opening his mouth to speak and made haste to anticipate what he imagined was going to be his objection. “No doubt,” he said, “you think you can make good the loss with phosphate rocks. But what’ll you do when the deposits are exhausted?” He poked Everard in the shirt front. “What then? Only two hundred years and they’ll be finished. You think we’re being progressive because we’re living on our capital. Phosphates, coal, petroleum, nitre—squander them all. That’s your policy. And meanwhile you go round trying to make our flesh creep with talk about revolutions.”
“But damn it all,” said Webley, half angry, half amused, “your phosphorus can wait. This other danger’s imminent. Do you want a political and social revolution?”
“Will it reduce the population and check production?” asked Lord Edward.
“Of course.”
“Then certainly I want a revolution.” The Old Man thought in terms of geology and was not afraid of logical conclusions. “Certainly.” Illidge could hardly contain his laughter.
“Well, if that’s your view …” began Webley; but Lord Edward interrupted him.
“The only result of your progress,” he said, “will be that in a few generations there’ll be a real revolution—a natural, cosmic revolution. You’re upsetting the equilibrium. And in the end, nature will restore it. And the process will be very uncomfortable for you. Your decline will be as quick as your rise. Quicker, because you’ll be bankrupt, you’ll have squandered your capital. It takes a rich man a little time to realize all his resources. But when they’ve all been realized, it takes him almost no time
