“Just so. But if you couldn’t foresee the danger, why didn’t you see at the time the justice of their claims, men like you, grandfather, who fought for justice for the smaller nations? It seems to me, the national characteristic of the upper classes fifty years ago must have been opposition to all change, a tendency to ignore symptoms which really were danger signals, and an undeveloped sense of justice ..., which only acted in certain grooves. The result was the uneducated came into power, embittered, without a shred of confidence in the disinterestedness of the educated. The Commonwealth—”
“The what?”
“The Commonwealth—you used to call it the Empire—nearly went upon the rocks.”
Jack’s young face became awed and stern and aged, as John had seen men’s faces become when they charged through the mud in the dawn.
“I was in Liverpool,” Jack said, “all through the Black Winter. It needn’t have been. It never, never need have been if there had been justice and sympathy in England for Labour forty years before. But there was not. So they paid us back in our own coin. We had no justice from them. My God! I can’t blame them.”
Serena, coming quietly up the path, saw the two men looking fixedly at each other, both pallid in the soft sunshine. The same shadow of suffering seemed to have fallen on the beautiful young face, and on the old one.
“You must not talk any more,” she said to John, casting a reproachful glance at her son. “You are over-tired.”
Jack took the hint, kissed his mother’s hand, and walked slowly away. He was deeply moved.
John shivered. A deathlike coldness was creeping over him, was laying an icy hand upon his heart. He turned to his sole comforter, Serena, watching him with limpid grieved eyes.
“Your grand-daughter, Catherine, is coming up to see you in a few minutes,” she said, trying as always to guard him against surprise. “How cold your hands are, Father. I could not let her see you till she had been disinfected after her chill for fear she might give it to you.”