"You'll get no lies from me," John replied.
"I can see very well you're going to be a nice cheerful chum to have in the house," Hinde said. "However, I'll bear it. The Haverstocks' 'At Home' is to-night. I don't suppose you have a dress suit?"
"It doesn't matter. Half the people who go to the Haverstocks don't wear evening dress on principle. That's their way of showing their contempt for conventionality. I suppose you'll come with me?" John nodded his head. "Good! We'll start off immediately after we've had our dinner. You'll get a good dose of Truth to-night, my son. There was a couple went there once ... the rummest couple I ever saw in my life. They thought they must do something for Progress and Advanced Thought, so they pretended they weren't married, but were living in sin!..."
"Aye, only they were legally married all right. You'll observe in time, Mac, that the people who make changes are never the advanced people who talk about them, but the ordinary, conventional people who have no theories about things, but just alter them when they become inconvenient. Butter wouldn't melt in the mouth of the man who is a devil of a fellow in print. This couple went to live at a Garden City and made an enormous impression on the Nut-eaters; and every Sunday evening crowds went to see them, living in sin. I went myself one night: it was terribly dull, and I thought if that's the best sin can do for a man, I'm going to join the Salvation Army. The woman took off her wedding-ring and hid it in the clock, and the man made a point of snorting every time he passed a parson. They had a grand time, as I tell you, until a terrible thing happened. A jealous nut-eater ... and I can tell you there's nothing on earth so fearful and vindictive as a jealous vegetarian ... discovered that these two were really married all the time, and he exposed them to their admirers. He produced a copy of their marriage-certificate at a public meeting which the man was addressing on the subject of Intolerable Bonds, and the meeting broke up in disorder. They had to leave the Garden City after that, and they're now hiding somewhere in the north of England and leading a life of shameful matrimony!..."