"The lid's off! That's the phrase I was searching for." Sir Tobias leant forward confidentially. "You haven't been much in England during the past four years or you'd know how badly the lid is off. You men, when you were in the trenches, lived above yourselves; but, the moment you came home on leave, you taught the world that wasn't in khaki how to live below itself. I could tell you stories——"
"I know." Tabs didn't want to hear those stories. "It was pathetic. Men tried to steal in a handful of hours all the passionate experiences that would have come to them beautifully and legitimately over forty years. It was like snatching from a bargain-counter things that you hadn't time to pay for.
You were young and you were so soon to be snuffed out. The unthoughtful took desperately what they believed life owed them. They——"
It was the turn of Sir Tobias to interrupt. "But so did the women—this Maisie woman, for instance. It was astounding—the women one would least have expected. All the desires we had caged through the centuries broke loose—caged with traditions, with public opinion and scriptural penalties." He was delighted with his image and went on to elaborate it. "They broke loose like wild animals from a menagerie. We'd always known they existed. Sometimes we'd paid surreptitious visits to them in books," the old eyes blinked cautiously, "the way one goes to the Zoo, to remind himself that there is a jungle somewhere. But we'd only regarded them as specimens; we'd never expected to meet them roaming about the streets loose or coming as domestic pets into our houses. Now the war's ended and the jungle's all about us; we can't get the animals back into their cages. Fellows like this General Braithwaite don't help matters by telling us that we oughtn't to want to get them back——"
"Perhaps he's one of the animals," Tabs interpolated. "You couldn't expect him to want to be put back."
"Perhaps he is. In fact that's what I've felt about him. That's what's helped me to make up my mind that he shall see no more of Terry." He reached out and tapped Tabs' hand, taking it for granted that he was his ally. "The sight's becoming far too normal—wild beasts everywhere, sunning
themselves in impertinent freedom, as if they were house-cats. Nobody's shocked at it any longer. Terry isn't. Lloyd George isn't—at least he pretends he isn't for fear the wild beasts may lose him an election. No one makes a stand. It's left for private individuals like ourselves, to——"
"To do what?"
Sir Tobias lost his stride. He blinked reproachfully. "To get them back into their cages."
For an instant Tabs nearly smiled. "And Adair—is he the first wild beast we tackle? Have we got to get him back into the cage of matrimony? Tell me about Adair."