f romance. It would have roused her fatigued
imagination had she not remembered that she had other business in hand.
She organised her face to look on the spectacle with innocent pleasure,
and then to darken at some serious reflection, and finally to assume the
expression which she had always thought Socialist leaders ought to wear,
though at public meetings she had noticed they do not.

She coughed to attract attention, and then sighed. "It's terrible," she
declared, taking good care that her voice should travel across the
table, "to see all these people being happy like this when there are
millions in want."

Marion set down her wine-glass with a movement that, though her hands
were clever, seemed clumsy, so indifferent was she to the thing she
handled and the place she put it in, and looked round the restaurant
with eyes that were very like Richard's, though they shone from
bloodshot whites and were not so bright as his, nor so kind; nor so
capable, Ellen felt sure, of losing all brilliance and becoming
contemplative, passionate darkness. She said in her rapid, inarticulate
murmur, "They don't strike me as being particularly happy."

Ellen was taken aback, and said in the tones of a popular preacher,
"Then what are they doing here--feasting?"

"I suppose they're here because it's on the map and so are they," she
answered almost querulously. "They'd go anywhere else if one told them
it was where they ought to be. Good children, most people. Anxious to do
the right thing. Don't you think?"

Ellen was unprepared for anything but agreement or reactionary argument
from the old, and this was neither, but a subtlety that she left matched
in degree her own though it was probably unsound; and to cover her
emotions she lifted her glass to her lips. But really wine was very
horrid. Her young mouth was convulsed. And then she reminded herself
that it could not be horrid, for all grown-up people like it, and that
there had never been any occasion when it was more necessary for her to
be grown-up, so she continued to drink. Even after several mouthfuls she
did not like it, but she was then interrupted by a soft exclamation from
Mrs. Yaverland.

"My dear, this wine is abominable. Don't you find it terribly sour?"

"Well, I was thinking so," said Ellen, "but I didn't like to say."

"It's dreadful. It must be corked."

"Yes, I think it must," said Ellen knowingly.

She called a waiter. "Would you like to try some other win