her own starvations and simplicities, to make-believe in
earnestness.

She had seen Courtier three times. Once he had come to dine, in response
to an invitation from Lady Valleys worded in that charming, almost
wistful style, which she had taught herself to use to those below her
in social rank, especially if they were intelligent; once to the Valleys
House garden party; and next day, having told him what time she would be
riding, she had found him in the Row, not mounted, but standing by the
rail just where she must pass, with that look on his face of mingled
deference and ironic self-containment, of which he was a master. It
appeared that he was leaving England; and to her questions why, and
where, he had only shrugged his shoulders. Up on this dusty platform, in
the hot bare hall, facing all those people, listening to speeches whose
sense she was too languid and preoccupied to take in, the whole medley
of thoughts, and faces round her, and the sound of the speakers'
voices, formed a kind of nightmare, out of which she noted with extreme
exactitude the colour of her mother's neck beneath a large black hat,
and the expression on the face of a Committee man to the right, who
was biting his fingers under cover of a blue paper. She realized that
someone was speaking amongst the audience, casting forth, as it were,
small bunches of words. She could see him--a little man in a black coat,
with a white face which kept jerking up and down.

"I feel that this is terrible," she heard him say; "I feel that this
is blasphemy. That we should try to tamper with the greatest force, the
greatest and the most sacred and secret-force, that--that moves in the
world, is to me horrible. I cannot bear to listen; it seems to make
everything so small!" She saw him sit down, and her mother rising to
answer.

"We must all sympathize with the sincerity and to a certain extent with
the intention of our friend in the body of the hall. But we must ask
ourselves:

"Have we the right to allow ourselves the luxury, of private feelings in
a matter which concerns the national expansion. We must not give way to
sentiment. Our friend in the body of the hall spoke--he will forgive me
for saying so--like a poet, rather than a serious reformer. I am afraid
that if we let ourselves drop into poetry, the birth rate of this
country will very soon drop into poetry too. And that I think it is
impossible for us to contemplate with folded hands. The resolution