She drifted back to Lord Roberts and the meeting.
"Only all that about war!—I don't like that. Don't seem right, not to my mind. There's a plenty enough troubles seems to me without them a-shoving great wars on top o you all for love."
Ernie felt that the occasion demanded a lecture and that he was pointed out as the man to give it. The chance, moreover, might not recur; and he must therefore make the most of it. He had this feeling less often perhaps than most men, and for that reason when he had it he had it strong. At the moment he was profoundly aware of the immense superiority of his sex; the political sagacity of Man; his power of taking statesmanlike views denied apparently to Woman.
"And what if Germany attacks us!" he asked censoriously. "Take it laying down, I suppose!—Spread yourself on the beach and let em tread on you as they land, so they don't wet their feet!"
"Germany won't interfere with you if you don't interfere with her, I reckon," Ruth answered calmly. "It's just the same as neighbours in the street. You're friends or un-friends, accordin as you like."
"What about Mrs. Ticehurst?" cried Ernie, feeling victory was his for once. "You didn't interfere with her, did you? Yet she tip the dust bin a-top o little Alice over the back-wall—to show she loved you, I suppose."
Ruth tilted a knowing chin.
"She aren't a neighbour, Mrs. Ticehurst aren't—not prarperly."
They were relapsing into broad Sussex as they always would when chaffing.
"What are she then?"