dialectic
advantage. His mind was running on big guns rather than arguments.

Lady Moyne squeezed my hand as we parted after luncheon, and I think I
am not exaggerating in saying that there were tears in her eyes. She
succeeded at all events in giving me the impression that her future
happiness depended very largely on me. I determined, as I had
determined several times before, to be true to the most charming lady
of my acquaintance.

Moyne took the chair at our meeting. Next him sat Babberly. Cahoon,
McNeice and Malcolmson sat together at the bottom of the table. I was
given a chair on Moyne's other side. Conroy would not sit at the table
at all. He had two chairs in a corner of the room. He sat on one of
them and put his legs on the other. He also smoked a cigar, which I
think everybody regarded as bad form. But nobody liked to protest,
because nobody, except me and McNeice, knew which side Conroy was
going to take in the controversy before us. Babberly, I feel sure,
would have objected to the cigar if he had thought that Conroy
favoured extreme defiance of the Government. Malcolmson, like many
military men, is a great stickler for etiquette. He would have snubbed
the cigar if he thought Conroy was inclined to moderation. As things
were, we all warmly invited Conroy to desert his private encampment
and join us round the table.

"I guess I'm here as an onlooker," said Conroy. "You gentlemen can
settle things nicely without me, till it comes to writing cheques.
Then I chip in."

Moyne murmured a compliment about Conroy's extreme generosity in the
past, and Babberly said that further calls on our purses were, for the
present, unnecessary. Then we all forgot about Conroy. The Dean sat
half way down the table on my side. There was also present a Member of
Parliament, a man who had sat by Babberly's side in the House of
Commons all through the dreary months of June, July and August,
supporting consistently every move he made towards wrecking the Home
Rule Bill. There ought to have been several others of the moderate
party at the meeting. Their letters of apology were read to us. They
all had urgent business either in England or Scotland, which prevented
their being in Belfast. I do not think their absence made much
difference in the result of our deliberations. We had got beyond the
stage at which votes matter much.

Moyne was pitifully nervous. He stated our position very fairly. It
was, he said, a hateful thing to