Next day the Crawleighs arrived in time for luncheon; and we returned to London in the afternoon. Our departure was on the border-line between farce and tragedy. Muffled in furs and bathed in the warm fragrance of her beloved carnations, Barbara took her place by my side; her eyes were shining as when I came back to her the day before; and her undemonstrative mother was stirred to exclaim: “My dear, you really do look very lovely.” Crawleigh, who had recently met my uncle at dinner and was overcharged with repartees that had not occurred to him in time, stood with one foot on the running-board and emphasized his endless rejoinders with excited cutting movements of a tremulous forefinger. In the background stretched the low grey walls of the Abbey, unchanged since the days when the first marquis criticized the treaty of Vienna, unchanged since Lord Chancellor Neave cavilled at the peace of Utrecht, unchanged since some nameless political abbot pointed the significance of Crécy and attacked the staff-work at Poictiers. I can no more reproduce my father-in-law’s arguments than I can reconstruct those of his predecessors; but I remember being told that now, two years after the armistice, we were in a more parlous state than when the war was still raging.
“That’s what my uncle always tells me,” I answered, though it was not worth while to remind Crawleigh that this was what I had been preaching in despised Peace for fifteen months. “If you sow the wind, you must expect to reap the whirlwind.”
The reply probably bore no relation to the argument, but I wanted to get away; and I had not listened to the argument.
As the car turned out of sight, Barbara flung aside one mask and pulled another into place. Her eyes lost their colour; her whole body seemed to grow limp. Appearances no longer needed to be maintained.
So we returned home, to reap a whirlwind. My trite phrase haunted me. I wondered who had sown the wind.
CHAPTER FOUR
IN A GILDED CAGE
For remember (this our children shall know: we are too near for that knowledge)
Not our mere astonied camps, but Council and Creed and College—
All the obese, unchallenged old things that stifle and overlie us—