“I do indeed.”
“Let’s go down to the rocks again, I like to be near the waves.”
Somers rose and followed him. The house was already lit up. The sea was bluey. They went down the steps cut in the earth of the bank top, and between the bushes to the sand. The tide was full, and swishing against a flat ledge of rocks. Jack went to the edge of this ledge, looking in at the surging water, white, hissing, heavy. Somers followed again. Jack turned his face to him.
“Funny thing it should go on doing this all the time, for no purpose,” said Jack, amid all the noise.
“Yes.”
Again they watched the heavy waves unfurl and fling the white challenge of foam on the shore.
“I say,” Jack turned his face. “I shan’t be making a mistake if I tell you a few things in confidence, shall I?”
“I hope not. But judge for yourself.”
“Well, it’s like this,” shouted Jack—they had to shout at one another in unnaturally lifted voices, because of the huge noise of the sea. “There’s a good many of us chaps as has been in France, you know—and been through it all—in the army—we jolly well know you can’t keep a country going on the vote-catching system—as you said the other day. We know it can’t be done.”
“It can’t,” said Somers, with a shout, “for ever.”