"Oakleigh! Oakleigh!" her husband expostulated. "You're too old to fight yourself; for God's sake don't damp the ardour of those who can, those who'll go on till they've dictated their own peace terms—in—Berlin," he ended proudly.
As the chorus subsided for want of breath, Frank Jellaby, who was now one of the Liberal Whips in the Coalition, allowed his incisive, nasal drawl to rise and dominate the table.
"The trouble about you, Oakleigh, is that you go through so many phases; we poor, benighted folk can't keep up with you. There was a phase—quite a long one, for you—when any war with Germany was impossible, unthinkable. Didn't you run a paper to prove it? When the war came, someone twitted you in the House, and you made a personal statement—and a pretty complete recantation. You've been wrong here, wrong there.... If I may put it quite brutally, how are we to know you're not just as wrong now, how soon may we expect another personal statement?"
"Have all your prophecies been right?" Bertrand enquired.
"What prophecies have I made?" was the bland and temporarily safe rejoinder.
It was the one articulate effort which I heard at this time to determine the limits of military effort. It was derided and drowned; and from that—as we had to go on fighting—there was a short and easy road to criticism of present methods.
"We've put our hands to the plough," said Maitland placatingly, when the ladies had left us. "We can't turn back, Oakleigh. And I'm afraid I believe that the biggest trial's still ahead of us."
"And you're satisfied we shall come out of that any better?" Bertrand answered. "Your experience of the war leads you to expect that? God knows, the men don't lack courage or sticking-power, but can you find them generalship?"
"We must go on till we do."
Bertrand smoked for some moments in a reflective silence.