"See me to my car," I said, as I put on my coat. "Look here, don't think I'm a mere busybody. You and your wife are such a pair of children that you mustn't mind a man twice your age telling you, if he thinks you're behaving foolishly. I strongly advise you to throw this over at Christmas. Now not another word."
O'Rane walked in silence through the Cloisters with one hand on the Saint Bernard's collar. As we came into Great Court, he stopped abruptly.
"Look here, sir; understand one thing," he began. "If you think I mind or that I'm not grateful to you for speaking like this, I shall never forgive you. But you say Sonia's to be trusted to take care of herself. That's enough. If she wasn't——" He shrugged his shoulders—"she wouldn't be worth keeping. If she fell in love with—who shall we say?—Beresford and ran away with him, in God's name d'you think I should want to stop her? I admit I've only been married three months, but to me love's a thing of perfect, implicit trust. This is between ourselves, but last week George Oakleigh came down for Founder's Day and dropped a hint that Sonia was lunching and dining out too much with—well, I suppose there's no harm in saying it—Grayle. As with you, someone had commented on it at dinner. I'm afraid I couldn't pump up the slightest indignation. Grayle's rather in love with her. So's Beresford. So's that squeaky tame-cat, Deganway, of the Foreign Office. So's one of my boys here—George's cousin Laurie, who firmly believes that he brought me up to the scratch and made me propose—rather against my will. So's young Pentyre, so's half the Brigade. If I wanted to be jealous, sir, I'm afraid I shouldn't have time. As it is, I'm so proud of Sonia that I glory in seeing other people proud of her, loving her.... As for stray comments at dinner—I don't say it's right and I don't say it's wrong, but she belongs to a very modern school which goes its own way without regarding stray comments at dinner. But so long as we agree that she's to be trusted——?"
We had reached Big Gate, and he held out his hand to me with the mischievous smile which I was beginning to know so well and which always filled me with a sense of helplessness. As I looked at him with the October wind blowing through his black hair, I reflected that he must think me very old-fashioned to be surprised when a three-month-old wife boasted of the men who were in love with her and her husband derived a reflected happiness from her successes.
Driving back to London I felt that I was escaping mile by mile from a bewildering world of serious make-believe.
5
My engagement that night was to dine with Harry Merefield and to discuss something which, he said, he could explain better by word of mouth than in a letter. I was intrigued by the invitation, because Merefield at this time was of considerable account in the Foreign Office. We dined at his Club, and, as the only other person present was Barton, who had thrown up his work at Cambridge twelve months before and was now my official chief in the Treasury, I divined that they contemplated a deal in my person. The preliminaries were already settled, and, as we drank our sherry, Merefield confided that the Foreign Office wanted me to go out to America ostensibly to raise money for the War Charities Fund, in reality to carry on a campaign of propaganda; my knowledge of country and people would be invaluable and our relations had reached a point where we could no longer afford to do nothing. Would I think over the proposal?
"If this Press agitation goes on ..." he began grimly and lapsed into eloquent silence.
I must confess that I have never been able to understand what function Ministers proposed that the Press should fulfil; they set up a Bureau to control the supply of news and occasionally to restrain editorial comment, but their interest seemed to die when once the War Office had secured that direct military information was not to be disclosed and that discussions and attacks should not take place round the head of this or that commander. Valiantly they feared nothing, despondently they hoped for nothing from a somewhat despised organisation which, despite their contempt, believed in its own power and was capable daily of placing the same view before every man and woman in the country until a vague but obstinate conviction arose that "there must be something in it." The Press with a little diplomatic flattery, might have become the handmaid of the Government; with promptitude and vigour it could have been emasculated to the semblance of an official bulletin. Instead, Ministers treated it like an intrusive wasp, slapping at it with ineffectual petulance, ducking their heads and running away when it was angered, until Sir John Woburn and half a dozen of his fellows were left to suggest, condemn, support and attack, to push favourite ministers and policies, to be inspired by those same ministers and to indulge in superficial criticism and the promulgation of half-truths which were harder to overtake and refute than a substantial, well-defined lie. Though never a Minister, I am afraid that I must accept my share of responsibility, for, when the House of Commons abrogated its duty of criticism, reform or remedy became possible only by a Press campaign.