Chapter: The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they
were both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that
could stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies,
had more kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at
one part of the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast
and of no one else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues
collided, fell ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all.
The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a
paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,
but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general
interest. After the paper came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast
also figured, appearing now as a bright spot in civilisation, now as a
dark spot, according to the temperament of the speaker. The subject of
the paper had been, "How ought I to dispose of my money?" the reader
professing to be a millionaire on the point of death, inclined to
bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but open
to conviction from other sources. The various parts had been assigned
beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing. The hostess assumed
the ungrateful role of "the millionaire's eldest son," and implored her
expiring parent not to dislocate Society by allowing such vast sums
to pass out of the family. Money was the fruit of self-denial, and the
second generation had a right to profit by the self-denial of the first.
What right had "Mr. Bast" to profit? The National Gallery was good
enough for the likes of him. After property had had its say--a saying
that is necessarily ungracious--the various philanthropists stepped
forward. Something must be done for "Mr. Bast"; his conditions must
be improved without impairing his independence; he must have a free
library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid in such a way that
he did not know it was being paid; it must be made worth his while to
join the Territorials; he must be forcibly parted from his uninspiring
wife, the money going to her as compensation; he must be assigned a
Twin Star, some member of the leisured classes who would watch over him
ceaselessly (groans from Helen); he must be given food but no clothes,
clothes but no food, a third-return ticket to Venice, without either
food or clothes when he arrived there. In short, he might be given
anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.

And here Margaret interrupted.

"Order, order, Miss Schlegel!" said the reader of the paper. "You are
here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the Society for the
Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. I cannot
have you speaking out of your role. It makes my poor head go round, and
I think you forget that I am very ill."

"Your head won't go round if only you'll listen to my argument," said
Margaret. "Why not give him the money itself? You're supposed to have
about thirty thousand a year."

"Have I? I thought I had a million."

"Wasn't a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that.
Still, it doesn't matter. Whatever you've got, I order you to give as
many poor men as you can three hundred a year each."

"But that would be pauperising them," said an earnest girl, who liked
the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.

"Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise a man.
It is these little driblets, distributed among too many, that do the
harm. Money's educational. It's far more educational than the things
it buys." There was a protest. "In a sense," added Margaret, but the
protest continued. "Well, isn't the most civilized thing going, the man
who has learnt to wear his income properly?"

"Exactly what your Mr. Basts won't do."

"Give them a chance. Give them money. Don't dole them out poetry-books
and railway-tickets like babies. Give them the wherewithal to buy these
things. When your Socialism comes it may be different, and we may think
in terms of commodities instead of cash. Till it comes give people
cash, for it is the warp of civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The
imagination ought to play upon money and realise it vividly, for it's
the--the second most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over
and hushed up, there is so little clear thinking--oh, political economy,
of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes,
and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the
result of independent means. Money: give Mr. Bast money, and don't
bother about his ideals. He'll pick up those for himself."

She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to
misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily
life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss
Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what
it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own
soul. She answered, "Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until
he had gained a little of the world." Then they said, "No, we do not
believe it," and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul
in the superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the
deed, but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources
of this world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to
clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had attacked
the fabric of Society--Property, Interest, etc.; she only fixed her eyes
on a few human beings, to see how, under present conditions, they could
be made happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the many-coloured
efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in
an universal grey. To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was
the utmost she dare hope for.

Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had a
bad time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her, and
in keeping the administration of the millionaire's money in their
own hands. The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of "personal
supervision and mutual help," the effect of which was to alter poor
people until they became exactly like people who were not so poor. The
hostess pertinently remarked that she, as eldest son, might surely rank
among the millionaire's legatees. Margaret weakly admitted the claim,
and another claim was at once set up by Helen, who declared that she
had been the millionaire's housemaid for over forty years, overfed and
underpaid; was nothing to be done for her, so corpulent and poor? The
millionaire then read out her last will and testament, in which she left
the whole of her fortune to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then she
died. The serious parts of the discussion had been of higher merit than
the playful--in a men's debate is the reverse more general?--but the
meeting broke up hilariously enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed
to their homes.

Helen and Margaret walked with the earnest girl as far as Battersea
Bridge Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she had gone
they were conscious of an alleviation, and of the great beauty of the
evening. They turned back towards Oakley Street. The lamps and the
plane-trees, following the line of the embankment, struck a note of
dignity that is rare in English cities. The seats, almost deserted, were
here and there occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled
out from the houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the
rising tide. There is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It
is an open space used rightly, a blessing more frequent in Germany than
here. As Margaret and Helen sat down, the city behind them seemed to
be a vast theatre, an opera-house in which some endless trilogy was
performing, and they themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers, who did
not mind losing a little of the second act.

"Cold?"

"No."

"Tired?"

"Doesn't matter."

The earnest girl's train rumbled away over the bridge, "I say, Helen--"

"Well?"

"Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?"

"I don't know."

"I think we won't."

"As you like."

"It's no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people. The
discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough with him in a
spirit of excitement, but think of rational intercourse. We mustn't play
at friendship. No, it's no good."

"There's Mrs. Lanoline, too," Helen yawned. "So dull."

"Just so, and possibly worse than dull."

"I should like to know how he got hold of your card."

"But he said--something about a concert and an umbrella."

"Then did the card see the wife--"

"Helen, come to bed."

"No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes; did you
say money is the warp of the world?"

"Yes."

"Then what's the woof?"

"Very much what one chooses," said Margaret. "It's something that isn't
money--one can't say more."

"Walking at night?"

"Probably."

"For Tibby, Oxford?"

"It seems so."

"For you?"

"Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it's that.
For Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End."

One's own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was sitting
with friends many seats away, heard this, rose to his feet, and strolled
along towards the speakers.

"It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than
people," continued Margaret.

"Why, Meg? They're so much nicer generally. I'd rather think of that
forester's house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Forstmeister who
lived in it."

"I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The
more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one
of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a
place."

Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had met.

"How do you do?" he cried. "I thought I recognised your voices. Whatever
are you both doing down here?"

His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit out
on Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented this, but
Margaret accepted it as part of the good man's equipment.

"What an age it is since I've seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in the
Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son."

"Paul?" said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting down
between them. "Oh, Paul's all right. We had a line from Madeira. He'll
be at work again by now."

"Ugh--" said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Isn't the climate of Nigeria too horrible?"

"Some one's got to go," he said simply. "England will never keep her
trade overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices. Unless we get
firm in West Africa, Ger--untold complications may follow. Now tell me
all your news."

"Oh, we've had a splendid evening," cried Helen, who always woke up at
the advent of a visitor. "We belong to a kind of club that reads papers,
Margaret and I--all women, but there is a discussion after. This evening
it was on how one ought to leave one's money--whether to one's family,
or to the poor, and if so how--oh, most interesting."

The man of business smiled. Since his wife's death he had almost doubled
his income. He was an important figure at last, a reassuring name on
company prospectuses, and life had treated him very well. The world
seemed in his grasp as he listened to the River Thames, which still
flowed inland from the sea. So wonderful to the girls, it held no
mysteries for him. He had helped to shorten its long tidal trough by
taking shares in the lock at Teddington, and if he and other capitalists
thought good, some day it could be shortened again. With a good dinner
inside him and an amiable but academic woman on either flank, he felt
that his hands were on all the ropes of life, and that what he did not
know could not be worth knowing.

"Sounds a most original entertainment!" he exclaimed, and laughed in
his pleasant way. "I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing. But she
hasn't the time. She's taken to breeding Aberdeen terriers--jolly little
dogs."

"I expect we'd better be doing the same, really."

"We pretend we're improving ourselves, you see," said Helen a little
sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns, and she
had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just made
would have impressed her favourably. "We suppose it a good thing to
waste an evening once a fortnight over a debate, but, as my sister says,
it may be better to breed dogs."

"Not at all. I don't agree with your sister. There's nothing like a
debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when
I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end."

"Quickness--?"

"Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I've missed scoring a point
because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't. Oh, I
believe in these discussions."

The patronising tone, thought Margaret, came well enough from a man who
was old enough to be their father. She had always maintained that Mr.
Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had
pained her, but it was pleasant to listen to him now, and to watch his
thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars. But Helen
was nettled. The aim of their debates she implied was Truth.

"Oh yes, it doesn't much matter what subject you take," said he.

Margaret laughed and said, "But this is going to be far better than the
debate itself." Helen recovered herself and laughed too. "No, I won't go
on," she declared. "I'll just put our special case to Mr. Wilcox."

"About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He'll be more lenient to a special case."

"But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It's this. We've
just come across a young fellow, who's evidently very poor, and who
seems interest--"

"What's his profession?"

"Clerk."

"What in?"

"Do you remember, Margaret?"

"Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company."

"Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug. He seems
interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could help him. He is
married to a wife whom he doesn't seem to care for much. He likes books,
and what one may roughly call adventure, and if he had a chance--But he
is so poor. He lives a life where all the money is apt to go on nonsense
and clothes. One is so afraid that circumstances will be too strong
for him and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our debate. He
wasn't the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his point. Suppose
a millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help such a man. How
should he be helped? Should he be given three hundred pounds a year
direct, which was Margaret's plan? Most of them thought this would
pauperise him. Should he and those like him be given free libraries?
I said 'No!' He doesn't want more books to read, but to read books
rightly. My suggestion was he should be given something every year
towards a summer holiday, but then there is his wife, and they said she
would have to go too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think?
Imagine that you were a millionaire, and wanted to help the poor. What
would you do?"

Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard
indicated, laughed exuberantly. "My dear Miss Schlegel, I will not rush
in where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not add another plan
to the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested. My only
contribution is this: let your young friend clear out of the Porphyrion
Fire Insurance Company with all possible speed."

"Why?" said Margaret.

He lowered his voice. "This is between friends. It'll be in the
Receiver's hands before Christmas. It'll smash," he added, thinking that
she had not understood.

"Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he'll have to get another place!"

"WILL have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get one
now."

"Rather than wait, to make sure?"

"Decidedly."

"Why's that?"

Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. "Naturally the man
who's in a situation when he applies stands a better chance, is in a
stronger position, that the man who isn't. It looks as if he's worth
something. I know by myself--(this is letting you into the State
secrets)--it affects an employer greatly. Human nature, I'm afraid."

"I hadn't thought of that," murmured Margaret, while Helen said, "Our
human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people because
they're unemployed. The boot man, for instance."

"And how does he clean the boots?"

"Not well," confessed Margaret.

"There you are!"

"Then do you really advise us to tell this youth--?"

"I advise nothing," he interrupted, glancing up and down the Embankment,
in case his indiscretion had been overheard. "I oughtn't to have
spoken--but I happen to know, being more or less behind the scenes. The
Porphyrion's a bad, bad concern--Now, don't say I said so. It's outside
the Tariff Ring."

"Certainly I won't say. In fact, I don't know what that means."

"I thought an insurance company never smashed," was Helen's
contribution. "Don't the others always run in and save them?"

"You're thinking of reinsurance," said Mr. Wilcox mildly. "It is exactly
there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to undercut, has been
badly hit by a long series of small fires, and it hasn't been able to
reinsure. I'm afraid that public companies don't save one another for
love."

"'Human nature,' I suppose," quoted Helen, and he laughed and agreed
that it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks, like
every one else, found it extremely difficult to get situations in these
days, he replied, "Yes, extremely," and rose to rejoin his friends. He
knew by his own office--seldom a vacant post, and hundreds of applicants
for it; at present no vacant post.

"And how's Howards End looking?" said Margaret, wishing to change the
subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to think one
wanted to get something out of him.

"It's let."

"Really. And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea? How strange
are the ways of Fate!"

"No; it's let unfurnished. We've moved."

"Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie never told
me."

"I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn't settled. We only moved
a week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place, and we held on
for him to have his holiday there; but, really, it is impossibly small.
Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you've been up to it?"

"As far as the house, never."

"Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don't really
do, spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among
the wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and
attempted a rockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it
didn't do--no, it didn't do. You remember, your sister will remember,
the farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old
woman never would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the
bottom. And, inside the house, the beams--and the staircase through a
door--picturesque enough, but not a place to live in." He glanced
over the parapet cheerfully. "Full tide. And the position wasn't right
either. The neighbourhood's getting suburban. Either be in London or out
of it, I say; so we've taken a house in Ducie Street, close to Sloane
Street, and a place right down in Shropshire--Oniton Grange. Ever heard
of Oniton? Do come and see us--right away from everywhere, up towards
Wales."

"What a change!" said Margaret. But the change was in her own voice,
which had become most sad. "I can't imagine Howards End or Hilton
without you."

"Hilton isn't without us," he replied. "Charles is there still."

"Still?" said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles's. "But I
thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that Christmas--one
Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire Mrs. Charles from our
windows very often. Wasn't it Epsom?"

"Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap"--his
voice dropped--"thought I should be lonely. I didn't want him to move,
but he would, and took a house at the other end of Hilton, down by
the Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they all are, a very jolly
party--he and she and the two grandchildren."

"I manage other people's affairs so much better than they manage them
themselves," said Margaret as they shook hands. "When you moved out of
Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it. I should
have kept so remarkable a place in the family."

"So it is," he replied. "I haven't sold it, and don't mean to."

"No; but none of you are there."

"Oh, we've got a splendid tenant--Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If
Charles ever wanted it--but he won't. Dolly is so dependent on modern
conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End. We like it in
a way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. One
must have one thing or the other."

"And some people are lucky enough to have both. You're doing yourself
proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations."

"And mine," said Helen.

"Do remind Evie to come and see us--2 Wickham Place. We shan't be there
very long, either."

"You, too, on the move?"

"Next September," Margaret sighed.

"Every one moving! Good-bye."

The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and watched
it sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her lover; she
herself was probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is it worth while
attempting the past when there is this continual flux even in the hearts
of men?

Helen roused her by saying: "What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has
grown! I have very little use for him in these days. However, he did
tell us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr. Bast as soon as ever
we get home, and tell him to clear out of it at once."

"Do; yes, that's worth doing. Let us."

 Helen and Margaret are also struck by their experience with Leonard, and they can't stop talking about him to their friends at dinner that night. They keep finding ways to bring him up in conversation, even in relation to a paper on philanthropy that's being presented that evening. "Mr. Bast" becomes a stand-in for the lower classes in general, and everyone tries to decide what could be done to make his life better. The Schlegels and their companions argue about how to "educate" the poor; Margaret claims that money is the only thing necessary for education, and that everything else follows from it. Everyone is shocked by this statement, but conversation goes on in a humorous and jovial fashion until the dinner guests leave, and the Schlegels walk home happily. The Schlegels stroll along the Thames embankment, and sit to look at the river. The sisters wonder if they should stay in touch with Leonard. Margaret brings up the problem of their housing situation and mentions Mrs. Wilcox and Howards End in passing. From a distance, Mr. Wilcox hears his name and walks over - he recognizes the Schlegels and says hello. He sounds masculine and protective, seeing that they're two ladies sitting alone at night, and while Helen resents this, Margaret thinks it's fine. The two sisters chat politely with Mr. Wilcox, and Margaret inquires about Paul; the Wilcoxes have business concerns in the colonial world, and Mr. Wilcox politely evades some tension about England's competition with Germany . Mr. Wilcox changes the topic and asks how they're doing; Helen tells him all about their evening with their debate club, and he's amused and charmed by their idealistic pastimes. We learn that he's become quite a powerful man over the past couple of years, and he's riding pretty high right now. Mr. Wilcox rather dismissively says that he wishes Evie would join a club like theirs, instead of breeding terriers . Helen responds rather irritably and defensively, and Mr. Wilcox tries to calm her down, saying that he agrees that debates are healthy and useful - he wishes he'd been more of a debater when he was younger, as being a bit quicker would be helpful to him now. Margaret diffuses the tension, and Helen laughs off her ill-temper. She changes the topic to Leonard, and tells Mr. Wilcox all about the argument their friends were having about how best to help him. The suggestions ran the gamut from simply giving him an annual income to sending him away for a holiday every summer. She asks Mr. Wilcox what he would do. Mr. Wilcox, ever the practical man, laughingly says he can't think of anything else beyond what's been suggested, except to tell him to leave his current employer , since he knows that it's going to go under. Mr. Wilcox recommends that Leonard look for a new job now, while he's still employed, to avoid getting laid off later. The economy makes it very difficult for anyone to get a job these days , and we have to wonder what Leonard could possibly do. Mr. Wilcox has no suggestions, and gets up to go back to his friends. As he's leaving, Margaret asks how Howards End is doing. We hear that the Wilcoxes have rented it out and moved away - they're worried that it's getting too suburban. Mr. Wilcox and Evie live in London with a country house in Shropshire, and Charles and Dolly still live in Hilton at another house. They part ways, and Margaret and Helen decide to share their advice about the Porphyrion Company with Leonard over tea.

