of merely being parties, the bare
collection together of human beings in their best clothes. I was,
therefore, greatly pleased when I discovered that my original guess
was right and that Lady Moyne's party was definitely political. I
found this out when I arrived in the drawing-room before dinner. I was
a little too early and there was no one in the room except Moyne. He
shook hands with me apologetically and this gave me a clue to the
nature of the entertainment before me. He dislikes politics greatly,
and would be much happier than he is if he were allowed to hunt and
fish instead of attending to such business as is carried on in the
House of Lords. But a man cannot expect to get all he wants in life.
Moyne has a particularly charming and clever wife who enjoys politics
immensely. The price he pays for her is the loss of a certain amount
of sport and the endurance of long periods of enforced legislative
activity.

"I ought to have told you before you came," he said, "that--well, you
know that my lady is very strongly opposed to this Home Rule Bill."

Moyne is fifteen years or so older than his wife. He shows his respect
for her by the pretty old-fashioned way in which he always speaks of
her as "my lady."

"The fact is," he went on, "that the people we have with us at
present--"

"Babberly?" I asked.

Moyne nodded sorrowfully. Babberly is the most terrific of all
Unionist orators. If his speeches were set to music, the orchestra
would necessarily consist entirely of cornets, trumpets and drums. No
one could express the spirit of Babberly's oratory on stringed
instruments. Flutes would be ridiculous.

"Of course," said Moyne, still apologetically, "it really is rather a
crisis you know."

"It always is," I said. "I've lived through seventy or eighty of
them."

"But this is much worse than most," he said. "A man called Malcolmson
arrived this afternoon, a colonel of some sort. Was in the artillery,
I think."

"You read his letter in _The Times_, I suppose?"

"Yes, I did. But I needn't tell you, Kilmore, that that kind of thing
is all talk. My wife--"

"I fancy Lady Moyne would look well as _vivandiere_," I said,
"marching in front of an ambulance waggon with a red cross on it."

Moyne looked pained. He is very fond of Lady Moyne and very proud of
her. This is quite natural. I should be proud of her too if she were
my wife.

"Her idea," said Lord Moyne, "is--"

Just then our Dean came into the room.