Sir Amyas Brand coughed uneasily, and then tried to laugh off his embarrassment for my benefit.
“There will be considerable scandal in my constituency!”
“To hell with that!” said Brand irritably. “It’s about time the British public returned to sanity.”
“Ah!” said Sir Amyas, “there’s a narrow border-line between sanity and shell-shock. Really, it is distressing what a number of men seem to come back with disordered nerves. All these crimes, all these cases of violence——”
It gave him a chance of repeating a leading article which he had read that morning in The Times. It provided a conversation without controversy until the end of dinner.
In the hall, before I left, Wickham Brand laughed, rather miserably.
“It’s not going to be easy! Elsa will find the climate rather cold here, eh?”
“She will win them over,” I said hopefully, and these words cheered him.
“Why, yes, they’re bound to like her.”