“More than Ibble and Ordith’s, more even than the whole armament ring. Behind the armament firms are the mines, behind the mines is shipping, behind shipping—oh, it goes on for ever expanding and expanding. It goes out in every direction, and drags in every individual in the world—shareholders, banks, the financial houses at home, international finance—there it is, fully expanded again. Your sister, viewing it from her own angle, sums it up as a Net. We are all shut up inside it, and everyone who thinks is swimming round and round trying to find a way out. Discontented devils—so we are! Every novel that says anything is full of protest, and every speech—public or private. The papers call it Industrial Unrest, the Foreign Correspondents European Unrest. The whole world’s affected as it was not in your Admiral’s time.... And in the Service we are shut up in a corner pocket of the Net; we haven’t the chance even to swim round and round.”
“Margaret will never accept anything,” Hugh commented. “Father is always telling her that if only she would watch the world as it is instead of thinking of the world as it might be she would get on much better.”
“You wouldn’t care much for a sister who sat down placidly to watch the world as it is,” John observed.
“No—it wouldn’t be attractive. I don’t mind so long as she doesn’t go to hopeless extremes,” added her cautious brother. “But she won’t do any good. The net is there, and the net will remain.”
“Until it breaks,” John said.
Two men and a woman with a shrivelled face passed along the verandah into the hotel. One of the men was chinking the coins in his pocket. A dog rose sleepily from under the table by which they had been sitting, stretched himself, sniffed the warm air, and pattered after his master.
CHAPTER XII
THE CAPTAIN IN CONFIDENCE
I
On the afternoon of the first Sunday after the Pathshire sailed from Colombo for Singapore, Hartington was sitting alone in his cabin when a double knock sounded at the door and the curtains were drawn aside. A pale face, with thin lips, watery, protuberant eyes, and a pitted forehead fringed with straight, clipped hair, was thrust into the cabin.