“I am afraid that insurmountable difficulties will stare us in the face,” murmured Lionel as he retraced his steps towards Piccadilly, after fruitless attempts at knowing his friends in the crowd. “We have not yet grasped what this new position means; at first we have thought of decency, some, I suppose, have dwelt on morality’s destiny; but I do declare that it means more than all that. If we cannot know employers from employees the whole status of civilisation is done with. This is a thing of which I had never thought.” He noticed, on his way home, that women had tears rolling down their cheeks, and men, as he brushed past them, swore in their moustaches. Lord Somerville felt a choking sensation in his throat as he realised that the old life with all its ease and luxury was over. Everything was so bare, so ugly. Where were the bewitching fashions that rejoiced his fastidious eye? Where the daintily-gowned young girls and women in our beautiful parks? As women passed by, he wondered to what class of Society they belonged. How could the shop-girl now be differentiated from the Duke’s daughter? He never could have believed such a dilemma possible. In front of his club he glanced through the swinging glass doors, and saw a portly individual standing; but he could not for his life tell whether it was the hall porter or one of the members.
Solitary confinement for twelve days had nearly driven Londoners mad; but he now realised that isolation in the midst of a maddening crowd would soon turn them into drivelling idiots. What they had gone through for more than a week had been a conflict between virtue and self-interest; but the future was more fearful, for more than interest was at stake, as self-respect was threatened to sink in this universal levelling. When he thought of all the social solecisms likely to occur in this state of _incognito_, he shuddered. If it was impossible to know whom to bow to, whom to nod to and whom to snub, however could Society exist? Our exclusive circles owed their existence to those delicate _nuances_ of politeness; and when the sliding scales of courtesy were abolished, Democracy was at hand, for no power on earth could stem the torrent of Anarchism from overpowering defenceless Society.