Frensham.

Mr. Britling hesitated.

Mr. Philbert supplied the name. "I saw it. It was the _Irish
Churchman_."

"You two have got your case up very well," said Lady Frensham. "I didn't
know Mr. Britling was a party man."

"The Nationalists have been circulating copies," said Philbert.
"Naturally."

"They make it look worse than mere newspaper talk and speeches," Mr.
Britling pressed. "Carson, it seems, was lunching with the German
Emperor last autumn. A fine fuss you'd make if Redmond did that. All
this gun-running, too, is German gun-running."

"What does it matter if it is?" said Lady Frensham, allowing a
belligerent eye to rest for the first time on Philbert. "You drove us to
it. One thing we are resolved upon at any cost. Johnny Redmond may rule
England if he likes; he shan't rule Ireland...."

Mr. Britling shrugged his shoulders, and his face betrayed despair.

"My one consolation," he said, "in this storm is a talk I had last month
with a young Irishwoman in Meath. She was a young person of twelve, and
she took a fancy to me--I think because I went with her in an alleged
dangerous canoe she was forbidden to navigate alone. All day the eternal
Irish Question had banged about over her observant head. When we were
out on the water she suddenly decided to set me right upon a disregarded
essential. 'You English,' she said, 'are just a bit disposed to take all
this trouble seriously. Don't you fret yourself about it... Half the
time we're just laffing at you. You'd best leave us all alone....'"

And then he went off at a tangent from his own anecdote.

"But look at this miserable spectacle!" he cried. "Here is a chance of
getting something like a reconciliation of the old feud of English and
Irish, and something like a settlement of these ancient distresses, and
there seems no power, no conscience, no sanity in any of us, sufficient
to save it from this cantankerous bitterness, this sheer wicked mischief
of mutual exasperation.... Just when Ireland is getting a gleam of
prosperity.... A murrain on both your parties!"

"I see, Mr. Britling, you'd hand us all over to Jim Larkin!"

"I'd hand you all over to Sir Horace Plunkett--"

"That doctrinaire dairyman!" cried Lady Frensham, with an air of quite
conclusive repartee. "You're hopeless, Mr. Britling. You're hopeless."

And Lady Homartyn, seeing that the phase of mere personal verdicts drew
near, created a diversion by giving Lady Frensham a second cup of t