'Hitherto our Patrick has never presumed to counsel his elder brother.'
'But an officer wearing...'
'The uniform! That would have to be stripped off. There'd be an end to any professional career.'
'You would not regret it?'
'No sorrow is like a soldier's bidding farewell to flag and comrades. Happily politics and I have no business together. If the country favours me with active service I'm satisfied for myself. You asked me for my opinions: I was bound to give them. Generally I let them rest.'
Could she have had the temerity? Jane marvelled at herself.
She doubted that the weighty pair of tears had dropped for the country. Captain Con would have shed them over Erin, and many of them. Captain Philip's tone was too plain and positive: he would be a most practical unhistrionic rebel.
'You would countenance a revolt?' she said, striking at that extreme to elicit the favourable answer her tones angled for. And it was instantly:
'Not in arms.' He tried an explanation by likening the dissension to a wrangle in a civilised family over an unjust division of property.
And here, as he was marking the case with some nicety and difficulty, an itinerant barrel-organ crashed its tragic tale of music put to torture at the gate. It yelled of London to Jane, throttled the spirits of the woods, threw a smoke over the country sky, befouled the pure air she loved.