You are hardly responsible for the catastrophe that has happened." "No," said Cicely, "but he'll come back naturally feeling sore and savage with everything he sees around him, and he won't realise just at once that we've been through all that ourselves, and have reached the stage of sullen acquiescence in what can't be helped.

He won't understand, for instance, how we can be enthusiastic and excited over Gorla Mustelford's debut, and things of that sort; he'll think we are a set of callous revellers, fiddling while Rome is burning." "In this case," said Ronnie, "Rome isn't burning, it's burnt.

All that remains to be done is to rebuild it--when possible." "Exactly, and he'll say we're not doing much towards helping at that." "But," protested Ronnie, "the whole thing has only just happened; 'Rome wasn't built in a day,' and we can't rebuild our Rome in a day." "I know," said Cicely, "but so many of our friends, and especially Murrey's friends, have taken the thing in a tragical fashion, and cleared off to the Colonies, or shut themselves up in their country houses, as though there was a sort of moral leprosy infecting London." "I don't see what good that does," said Ronnie.
"It doesn't do any good, but it's what a lot of them have done because they felt like doing it, and Murrey will feel like doing it too.

That is where I foresee trouble and disagreement." Ronnie shrugged his shoulders.
"I would take things tragically if I saw the good of it," he said; "as matters stand it's too late in the day and too early to be anything but philosophical about what one can't help.

For the present we've just got to make the best of things.