“You’ll rather hate that, won’t you, Kilmore?”
“I shall detest it.”
“And I don’t see what good it will do.”
“Nor do I; but Lady Moyne and Babberly both say that as I’m a Liberal—”
“Surely to God you’re not that!” said Moyne.
“No, I’m not. But I’m suspected of being inclined that way. Therefore my being on the platform will prove to the world that you’re not nearly so much of a Unionist as you’ve been trying to make out.”
“But I am,” said Moyne.
“I know that, of course; but Lady Moyne wants to persuade people that you’re not, just for the present, till this fuss about the Review wears off.”
“I suppose it will be all right,” said Moyne, again.
It was all right. An announcement was made in all the leading papers that no one had ever intended to hold a Review on the 12th of July, but that the Unionist leaders had expressed their unalterable determination to have a March Past. The Liberal papers said that this abandonment of the principal item on their programme showed more distinctly than ever that the Ulster Unionists were merely swaggering cowards who retreated before the firm front showed by the Government in face of their arrogant claims. The Unionist papers said that Belfast by insisting on the essential thing while displaying a magnanimous disregard for the accidental nomenclature, had demonstrated once and for ever the impossibility of passing the Home Rule Bill.