“I wanted to see that you were all right.”
“Thank you.” . . . As though afraid that I might take advantage of her curt gratitude, she broke into a laugh. “Some one—I think it was Jim—once said that, when the revolution came, there’d be keen competition between Sonia and me for a place in the first tumbril. If it begins to-day, we shall be able to drive down together. I suppose we are two of the most useless human beings in creation. . . . I hope the mob doesn’t break in while father’s here: I know he’d struggle with the executioner, and I think it’s unfair to hinder a man who’s simply trying to do his duty.”
“I feel Robson would probably save us,” I answered. “He’d tell the mob, very patiently, that it was out of the question for them to have a revolution in Seymour Street.” . . .
“You don’t really expect any trouble, do you?”
As I believed Barbara to be entirely fearless, I did not mind speaking frankly:
“It all turns on what’s likely to happen in the next few hours. The men are too tired at present even to feel hungry. When they wake up, they’ll be like ravening wolves.”
On Crawleigh’s arrival, I was distantly comforted to find that he shared my own view and had indeed spent an hour trying to get it accepted in Downing Street. During his viceroyalty he had been ultimately responsible for the relief-works in two famines; and, for once, I found him pregnant with constructive proposals. Three or four of the biggest catering-firms, he urged, should set up kitchens in the London parks; every public hall should be turned into a dormitory; and, if supplies ran short in the shops, there must be a house-to-house visitation to collect bread and blankets.
“I’d punish the ring-leaders without mercy,” he added, “but we must do one thing at a time. This is December, these men are starving; and for the next forty-eight hours we must simply suspend our ordinary laws. Why the government ever allowed such madness . . .”
We were still discussing emergency measures when Sonia came in very late and apologetic. Every approach to Westminster, she reported, was barred with lines of mounted police; St. James’ Park was closed, Whitehall and Victoria Street were barricaded. She herself had crossed the river at Lambeth and come by tube from Waterloo.
“Are things still quiet?,” Lady Crawleigh enquired nervously.