"So you told me some years ago when the Daintons gave their first ball at the Empire Hotel."
"And haven't I kept my word? I've been finding the means, and you know the twin obsessions of my mind."
"War and a revolution?"
He nodded, and looked round the supper-room.
"There's a lot worth saving, George; it's the greatest country in the world. But there's a lot to be rooted out. People won't recognize that civilization can never be stationary." He waved his hand rhythmically in time with the music. "Backwards or forwards. Backwards or forwards. And coming here after some years abroad, everything I see makes me think we're sliding backwards."
II
Though O'Rane gave me no more than a couple of veiled hints, he was at this time in train to be adopted as a Conservative candidate. There was a certain irony in the son of the last Lord O'Rane standing in such an interest, but the House of Commons has little use for non-party men, and he was now more closely connected with the National Service and Navy Leagues than with any Liberal organization.
The irony would have been completer if the swift changes of politics had not delayed his election. It was not till the early spring of 1914 that he took his seat, and his place by this time was on the Ministerial side. The volte-face sounds more abrupt than it really was if it be remembered that he never had more than one object in view at a time. Political gossip in the days of the Agadir incident said that part of the Cabinet was ready for war while another part asserted that our warlike preparations were inadequate. From that moment O'Rane's mind was set on seeing the country put into such training that it would not be found wanting if a similar crisis arose in the future.
When he finally went to the electors of Yateley, the focus of public interest had changed. The surface of diplomacy was unruffled; the Tripoli Campaign and the two Balkan wars had dragged to an end without involving any of the Great Powers, and my uncle's confidence rose from strength to strength at the confirmation of his favourite doctrine that modern war was too vast and complex for a first class power to undertake.
On the other hand, the condition of England was a matter for considerable searching of heart. A spirit of unrest and lawlessness, a neurotic state not to be dissociated from the hectic, long-drawn Carnival that continued from month to month and year to year, may be traced from the summer of the Coronation. It is too early to probe the cause or say how far the staggering ostentation of the wealthy fomented the sullen disaffection of the poor. It is as yet impossible to weigh the merits in any one of the hysterical controversies of the times. Looking back on those four years, I recall the House of Lords dispute and a light reference to blood flowing under Westminster Bridge, railway and coal strikes characterized by equally light breach of agreements, a campaign in favour of female suffrage marked by violence to person and destruction to property, and finally a wrangle over a Home Rule Bill that spread far beyond the walls of Westminster and ended in the raising and training of illegal volunteer armies in Ireland. Such a record in an ostensibly law-abiding country gives matter for reflection. Sometimes I think the cause may be found in the sudden industrial recovery after ten years' depression following the South African War. The new money was spent in so much riotous living, and from end to end there settled on the country a mood of fretful, crapulous irritation. 'An unpopular law? Disregard it!' That seemed the rule of life with a people that had no object but successive pleasure and excitement and was fast becoming a law unto itself.