of no reassuring order.

'THE PLOT THICKENS.'
'MORE REVELATIONS.'
'GRAVE SITUATION THREATENED.'

And before each poster could be seen a little eddy in the stream of the
passers-by--formed by persons glancing at the news, and disengaging
themselves, to press on again. The Earl of Valleys caught himself
wondering what they thought of it! What was passing behind those pale
rounds of flesh turned towards the posters?

Did they think at all, these men and women in the street? What was their
attitude towards this vaguely threatened cataclysm? Face after face,
stolid and apathetic, expressed nothing, no active desire, certainly no
enthusiasm, hardly any dread. Poor devils! The thing, after all, was no
more within their control than it was within the power of ants to stop
the ruination of their ant-heap by some passing boy! It was no doubt
quite true, that the people had never had much voice in the making of
war. And the words of a Radical weekly, which as an impartial man he
always forced himself to read, recurred to him. "Ignorant of the facts,
hypnotized by the words 'Country' and 'Patriotism'; in the grip of
mob-instinct and inborn prejudice against the foreigner; helpless by
reason of his patience, stoicism, good faith, and confidence in those
above him; helpless by reason of his snobbery, mutual distrust,
carelessness for the morrow, and lack of public spirit-in the face of War
how impotent and to be pitied is the man in the street!" That paper,
though clever, always seemed to him intolerably hifalutin'!

It was doubtful whether he would get to Ascot this year. And his mind
flew for a moment to his promising two-year-old Casetta; then dashed
almost violently, as though in shame, to the Admiralty and the doubt
whether they were fully alive to possibilities. He himself occupied a
softer spot of Government, one of those almost nominal offices necessary
to qualify into the Cabinet certain tried minds, for whom no more
strenuous post can for the moment be found. From the Admiralty again his
thoughts leaped to his mother-in-law. Wonderful old woman! What a
statesman she would have made! Too reactionary! Deuce of a straight
line she had taken about Mrs. Lees Noel! And with a connoisseur's twinge
of pleasure he recollected that lady's face and figure seen that morning
as he passed her cottage. Mysterious or not, the woman was certainly
attractive! Ver