The Duchess had just returned from Palestine, and it was
beginning to be whispered she had gone there with a young man. The
talk turned again on the morality of London, and exciting stories
were told of a fracas which had occurred between two well-known men.
So their desks had been broken open, and packets of love letters
abstracted. New scandals were about to break to blossom, other
scandals had been nipped in the bud.
Harding said nothing wittier had been said for many generations than
the _mot_ credited to a young girl, who had described a ball given
that season by the women of forty as "The Hags' Hop." Somebody else
had called it "The Roaring Forties." Which was the better
description of the two? "The Roaring Forties" seemed a little
pretentious, and preference was given to the more natural epigram,
"The Hags' Hop."
"We were all virtuous in the fifties, now licence has reached its
prime, and we shall fall back soon into decadence."
Harding, who was something of an historian, was able to illustrate
this prophecy by reference to antiquity. When the life of the senses
and understanding reached its height, as it did in the last stages
of the Roman Empire, a reaction came.
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