From Barbara’s thoughtful look I fancied she was wondering whether I wanted a divorce in order to marry some one else.
“The trouble is,” she continued, “you never know who is the right man till you’ve married him. I always thought you had more perfect understanding than any man I knew . . . Funny!,” she added, as I made no answer.
No answer seemed possible. There was now no change in our rare private passages, though I thought the reference to my want of understanding was dragged in to close the subject of divorce. There was no change in the atmosphere of this party. Nearly seven years had passed since Violet and I last dined together at Loring House. The noble line of portraits had been reinforced by a black-and-white sketch of Jim in uniform; Sandy was old enough for his mother to consult me about schools; but we were arguing now in the very mood and terms that we had used in 1914.
“I wish people wouldn’t talk so much about ‘the next war’,” Violet muttered with a frown in the direction of Philip Hornbeck. “I’ve lost my husband; I’m not going to lose my son if I can help it.”
The big, softly-lighted room reminded me of my interminable discussions with Jim and of his own admission on the outbreak of war that the old governing classes were played out. I was reminded, too, of the question that had haunted me in the first weeks of the armistice: if the order that was represented at this table could not keep peace or make peace, would it have to give way?
“We talk about the next war,” I said, “because the combined wisdom of the world has done nothing in the last three years to prevent it.”
“I suppose the prime minister is the only man . . .?” she hazarded.
“Every prime minister is indispensable,” I answered, “till he finds himself on an opposition bench, watching his successor taking command. Five minutes after George goes, every one will ask why he didn’t go before. Every one will discover then the vice of all coalitions: which is that there’s no one to oppose them. You don’t expect Curzon to admit that Lloyd-George’s foreign policy is dangerous?”
“Can nobody do anything from outside?”
“The press does its best, but this government is stronger than the press. Otherwise, Woburn and his combine would have had George out in the street a year ago. Your best hope is an intrigue from inside. Ll-G. was at least equally responsible for the shortage of high explosives in ’15; yet he put the blame on the others and broke the Asquith government. It may be done again.”