There was silence for a moment after her going, until it was broken by Alban Bellairs.
“I think you’re a damned fool, Bertram. Have you gone Bolshie or something?”
“I’ve explained my views,” said Bertram, coldly; “I don’t expect you to understand them.”
Kenneth Murless thought a little tact might help, and spoke in his agreeable voice.
“I see his point of view. It’s extremely interesting as a study in sentiment. I don’t agree, of course, being a hopeless Reactionary, thank goodness, undisturbed by any liberal or revolutionary thought.”
Lord Ottery was about to utter a judicial opinion, but decided that it was hardly worth while after dinner,—and dozed a little with his red beard on his shirt front.
General Bellasis cut short all further discussion, in his hard, matter-of-fact way when dealing with men. He had another manner in the presence of women he liked.
“For your wife’s sake, Pollard, I make the offer again, for ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ without argument. Which is it?”
Bertram did not answer for a second or so, but in that time he reviewed his life with Joyce, and saw with tragic certainty that this was the crisis. Acceptance meant surrender of his ideals, such as they were, and definite allegiance to opinions and acts which would put him for ever on the side opposed to liberal thought.
He was to decide between Joyce’s “crowd” and the labouring classes of England, or at least between the philosophy of men like Bellasis, summed up in the phrase, “Give ’em Hell!” and that of Christy who believed in human brotherhood. This job, offered by Bellasis, would kill the friendship of men like Christy, Lawless, Bernard Hall. They would put him with the Junker class, and turn their backs on him.