ven hoof
to my friends for the first time.

"We don't respect the Country as we used to do," I said. "We haven't
the same belief we used to have in the will of the people. It's no
good, Crampton, trying to keep that up. We Liberals know as a matter of
fact--nowadays every one knows--that the monster that brought us into
power has, among other deficiencies, no head. We've got to give it
one--if possible with brains and a will. That lies in the future. For
the present if the country is with us, it means merely that we happen to
have hold of its tether."

Lewis was shocked. A "mandate" from the Country was sacred to his system
of pretences.

Britten wasn't subdued by his first rebuff; presently he was at
us again. There were several attempts to check his outbreak of
interrogation; I remember the Cramptons asked questions about the
welfare of various cousins of Lewis who were unknown to the rest of us,
and Margaret tried to engage Britten in a sympathetic discussion of the
Arts and Crafts exhibition. But Britten and Esmeer were persistent, Mrs.
Millingham was mischievous, and in the end our rising hopes of Young
Liberalism took to their thickets for good, while we talked all over
them of the prevalent vacuity of political intentions. Margaret was
perplexed by me. It is only now I perceive just how perplexing I must
have been. "Of course, she said with that faint stress of apprehension
in her eyes, one must have aims." And, "it isn't always easy to put
everything into phrases." "Don't be long," said Mrs. Edward Crampton
to her husband as the wives trooped out. And afterwards when we went
upstairs I had an indefinable persuasion that the ladies had been
criticising Britten's share in our talk in an altogether unfavourable
spirit. Mrs. Edward evidently thought him aggressive and impertinent,
and Margaret with a quiet firmness that brooked no resistance, took him
at once into a corner and showed him Italian photographs by Coburn. We
dispersed early.

I walked with Britten along the Chelsea back streets towards Battersea
Bridge--he lodged on the south side.

"Mrs. Millingham's a dear," he began.

"She's a dear."

"I liked her demand for a hansom because a four-wheeler was too safe."

"She was worked up," I said. "She's a woman of faultless character, but
her instincts, as Altiora would say, are anarchistic--when she gives
them a chance."

"So she takes it out in hansom cabs."

"Hansom cabs."

"She's wise," said B