eeing how deeply she was moved by it made me the more regretful that I
had not arrived at the flat before her morning paper. Constance had been
the first to give me the news of the American offer of help at the
beginning of the war; she had been the first to give me any serious
understanding of the invasion, there in that very room of the little
South Kensington flat, on the fateful Sunday of the Disarmament
Demonstration. Now she raised her gleaming eyes to me as I entered:

"A thing like this makes up for all the ills one's ever known, Dick,"
she said, and dropped one hand on the paper in her lap.

"Yes, it's something like a piece of news, is it not? I had hoped to
bring it you, but I might have known you would be at your paper
betimes."

"Oh, it's magnificent, Dick, magnificent! I have no words to tell you
how glad I am about this. I see John Crondall's hand here, don't you?"

"Yes," I said; and thought: "Naturally! You see John Crondall
everywhere."

"He was dead against any sort of an Alliance while we were under a
cloud. And he was right. The British people couldn't afford to enter any
compact upon terms of less than perfect equality and independence. But
now--why, Dick, it's a dream come true: the English-speaking peoples
against the world. It's Imperial Federation founded on solid rock. No!
With its roots in the beds of all the seven seas. And never a hint of
condescension, but just an honourable pact between equals of one stock."

"Yes; and a couple of years ago----"

"A couple of years ago, there were Englishmen who spat at the British
Flag."

"There was a paper called _The Mass_."

Constance smiled up at me. "Do you remember the Disarmament
Demonstration?" she said.

"Do you remember going down Fleet Street into a wretched den, to call on
the person who was assistant editor of _The Mass_?"

"The person! Come! I found him rather nice."

"Ah, Constance, how sweet you were to me!"

"Now, there," she said, with a little smile, "I think you might have
changed your tense."

"But I was talking of two years ago, before---- Well, you see, I thought
of you, then, as just an unattached angel from South Africa."

"And now you have learned that my angelic qualities never existed
outside your imagination. Ah, Dick, your explanations make matters much
worse."

"But, no; I didn't say you were the less an angel; only that I thought
of you as unattached, then--you see."

Constance looked down at her pape