“Not with these men,” he said. “Not with this political system, not in these times. Do you imagine for a moment that the present Cabinet holds a single man big enough, humble enough, patriotic enough to permit even the King to step on the stage and absorb the limelight? No. Not one. There is some microbe in the House of Commons, some atrocious cootie which gets under the skin of its members and poisons them so that they become the victims of a form of egomania of which they never can be cured. Then, too, my dear Lytham, we must get it into our heads that the Irish trouble is like a cancer in the body of the Constitution. We may hit upon a medicine that seems likely to give temporary relief—the withdrawal of the troops, the appointment of a new Lord Lieutenant, even the establishment of a Dominion Government—but we have got to remember that the hatred of the Irish for the English is fundamental and permanent. What may seem to us to-day to offer a solution to this age-old problem becomes futile and unworkable to-morrow. In our efforts to deal with the question we must not allow ourselves to be influenced by the quick transitory events that chase each other across the front pages of the paper. We must, if we can, go to the root of the malady,—the deep human emotion that burns in the hearts and souls of the Irish and endeavor to understand. Otherwise we are as children making foolish marks on shifting sand. What we write to-day is obliterated to-morrow.”
He turned about, walked slowly over to the chair at his desk and dropped into it heavily, rising again immediately because Feo was standing.
Seeing which, and having an engagement to join Mrs. Malwood and several others at a private dance club, she made for the door. “Well,” she said, “there it is. I did my best for you.”
“An excellent best,” said Fallaray. “Thank you again. Are you leaving us?”
She waved her hand, that long able hand which might have achieved good things but for that fatal kink in her,—and went.
“Brilliant woman,” said Fallaray. It was on the tip of Lytham’s tongue to say “Brilliant what?” but he swallowed the remark.
And presently they heard Feo’s high-pitched voice in the street below, giving an order to her chauffeur.
And they resumed the discussion, coming back always to the point from which they started. The Old Bad Man, shuffling, juggling, lying to others as well as themselves, without the sense to realize that something far worse than the War was coming hourly to a head, blocked every avenue of escape.
VII
Lytham walked home in the small hours of that morning. He had the luck to live in the Albany, at the Piccadilly end. The streets, but for a silent-footed Bobby or two, were deserted. Even the night birds had given up hope and withdrawn to their various nests.