"I felt I could make it a bit fuller," Bertrand suggested.
Grayle looked at him enquiringly.
"I see. Well, you're at liberty to tell your tale, and I'll tell mine. Or we can both leave it where it is. I admit that some people aren't quite satisfied at present, but I manage to get rid of them,—as you've seen. If you want me even to drop a hint that there was an attempt at——?"
His lips formed the word, but he did not utter it; and the unexpected silence was surprisingly sinister.
"It's no business of mine what lies you tell," Bertrand answered. "Is that all you wanted to say? If so, I'll move along."
In the week before Christmas O'Rane returned from Melton to find me immovably billeted upon him. After the first greetings he sat silent and reflective. I could see that he wanted to talk and did not know how to begin. The room was his wife's, and there were still marks by the lock, where he had burst it from the wood-work. God knows what his thoughts must have been! As I looked at his slight figure, lazily reposing in a long chair, and at his self-possessed, unrevealing face, I found it hard to picture the scene when he broke in the door. And for the thousandth time since that day of tragedy I asked myself what had been left him in life and longed for him to ask at least for sympathy, if he knew that I could give him no more help.
When he spoke, it was to make some comment on the war. The month-old rumour that the cabinet had broken on the question of peace negotiations was still flourishing. Rather than face another winter in the trenches the German Government was alleged to have made an offer to evacuate Belgium and northern France with the alternative of a threat, in the event of the war's continuing, that every neutral and allied ship sailing under whatsoever flag would be sunk at sight without warning. A school that was faint-hearted in asserting itself, even if it were not faint-hearted in the prosecution of the war, whispered that we must not miss our market and—in Bertrand's phrase—refuse terms now that we should have to accept gratefully and after the loss of another half million men in six months' time. The rival school of stalwarts proclaimed with great show of reason that Germany would talk of peace only at her own convenience—or necessity—and that her needs were our opportunity.
We went on to talk of the new government and its prospect of life. In the week before I was incapacitated political passion in London rose higher than I have ever known it. The old government, tired and indolent, half-hearted and uncaring, was losing the war beyond hopes of recovery. The new government had intrigued its way into place, selling its soul to Lord Northcliffe, as Faust sold his soul to the devil.... As a very independent member I was privileged to hear both opinions in approximately equal numbers and certainly with equal violence of expression. I described to O'Rane two characteristic meetings within five minutes of each other. I had been walking from my office to lunch at the County Club one day, when I stopped to observe an unusual number of cars and a considerable crowd of loafers outside the Reform Club. George Oakleigh came up from behind and asked what I was watching.
"It's the party meeting," he explained. "Aren't you going?"