Читать книгу The storm of London: a social rhapsody онлайн

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That evening Lionel sat up late in his library planning in his mind the organisation of the new Society of social guides. He frequently interrupted his work to look up at his father’s portrait; his type was not unlike hundreds of men he had seen during the day, and he wondered how he could recognise his own father were he alive? Would not the latter have been slightly bewildered in this Babel? Would not his pedantic theories on good breeding receive a shock were he now to step out of his frame and take a stroll through the streets of London?

Towards two o’clock in the morning the Earl had memorised the whole synopsis of the new Society, to be launched under the gracious patronage of the Earl of A.B.C. and of Her Grace the Duchess of X.Y.Z., and he retired to his pallet of plaited rushes with a sigh of contentment at the prospect of a new spectacular show, and with a sense of relief at the thought that Gwendolen was lost to him, more irrevocably lost in this general unmasking than if a vessel had foundered on a rock, leaving her on a desert island.