LITMIR.BIZ

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The poor fellow is in a wretched state—utterly broken down; they feared a few weeks ago that he was going crazy. You know that he was great at yachting; of course he has had to sell his yacht, and I have bought it.”

      “What will you tell me next?”

      “Why, this. It is essential that poor Calder should get away to the South, and nothing would do him half as much good as a sail among the islands. Now I propose to ask him to accompany me on such a cruise, say at the beginning of next month. He and I have been on the best of terms since we were lads, and there’s no kind of awkwardness in the arrangement; he goes to put me up to the art of seamanship. Of course his wife accompanies him, and probably their eldest girl.”

      “That’s the kindest thing I have heard for a long time, Robert,” said Isabel, giving him a look of admiration.

      “Oh dear no; nothing could be simpler. And now—I want you to come with them.” Isabel shook her head.

      “But what is your objection?”

      “I cannot leave England at present.”

      “I don’t ask you to. We are at the middle of January; it will be time enough in three weeks.”

      “Out of the question.”

      She still shook her head, smiling. Robert reflected for a moment.

      “When does this marriage take place?” he asked abruptly.

      “Very shortly, I suppose. I have written to Mr. Lacour to request him to make arrangements as soon as he likes. I shall meet him in London on Monday.”

      “Good. Then you are absolutely free.”

      “I am not free.”

      He glanced at her inquiringly.

      “I am not free,” Isabel repeated, looking straight before her.

      “I suppose I shall be grossly impertinent if I ask what it is that holds you?”

      “I cannot now tell you, Robert, but—I must remain in England.”

      Her voice had a tremor in it, which she did her best to subdue. She was smiling still, but in a forced, self-conscious way.

      Asquith leaned back; he had lost his look of cheerful confidence.

      “But it isn’t such a grave matter, after all,” said Isabel, restoring the former tone. “It was a very kind thought of yours, very kind—but you won’t quarrel with me because I can’t come? It will make no difference in your plan for the Calders, surely?”

      “I can’t say, I’m sure,” Asquith replied, in an almost petulant manner, strangely at variance with his ordinary tone. He had thrust his hands into his pockets, and was tapping the carpet with his foot.

      “What nonsense!” Isabel exclaimed, with growing good humour. “As if you would allow such a scheme to be overthrown just because one of the party failed you! I can suggest half a dozen delightful people who will be happy to go with you.”

      “No doubt; but I wanted you.”

      “Robert, you are undeniably Oriental; the despotic habit still clings to you. If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, neither does one day’s hunting make an Englishman.”

      His countenance cleared.

      “Well,” he said, “this is certainly not final. Let us wait till that wedding is over.”

      “It is final,” she returned, very positively. “The wedding will not in the least alter things.”

      “What then are you going to do?” he asked, with deliberation, gazing at her steadily.

      Her eyes fell, and she seemed half to resent his persistence, as she answered:

      “I am going to live on three hundred a year.”

      “H’m! Do you think of living in London?”

      “No; I do not think of living in London. Proceed, sir, with the cross-examination.”

      “I think I have been rude enough for one day,” he returned, with a quiet smile as he rose from his chair.

      She held her hand to him with the friendly grace which could repay even when it disappointed.

      “Thank you, with all my heart,” she said. “Only—remember how dear independence must be to me.”

      “Are you acquainted with Mr. Lyster?” Robert asked, with a transition to easier topics.

      “I don’t think I know any one of that name.”

      “Some one who arrived here a few minutes after I did. It seems we came in the same train.”

      “To be sure; a friend the Strattons were expecting. Shall we go to the drawingroom?”

      There they found the gentleman in question conversing with Mrs. Stratton, a man of smooth appearance and fluent speech. His forte seemed to be politics, on which subject he discoursed continuously during luncheon. There happened to be diplomatic difficulties with Russia, and Mr. Lyster—much concerned, by-the-bye, with Indian commerce—was emphatic in denunciation of Slavonic craft and treachery, himself taking the stand-point of disinterested honesty, of principle in politics.

      “We shall have to give those fellows a licking yet,” remarked Colonel Stratton, with confidence inspired by professional feeling.

      “I should think so, indeed!” put in Frank Stratton, the eldest son. The two schoolboys had by this time returned to their football, and only the representatives of Woolwich and Sandhurst remained to grace the family table. “And the sooner the better.”

      “What I want to know,” exclaimed Mr. Lyster, “is whether England is a civilising power or not. If so, it is our duty to go to war; if not, of course we may prepare to go to the–”

      “Don’t hesitate, Mr. Lyster,” said Mrs. Stratton good-naturedly, “I’m sure we all agree with you.”

      “Civilisation!” proceeded the politician, when the laugh had subsided; “that is what England represents, and civilisation rests upon a military basis, if it has any basis at all. It’s all very well to talk about the humanity of arbitration and fudge of that kind; it only postpones the evil day. Our position is the result of good, hard fighting, and mere talking won’t keep it up; we must fight again. Too long a peace means loss of prestige, and loss of prestige means the encroachment of barbarians, who are only to be kept in order by repeated thrashings. They forget that we are a civilising power; unfortunately we are too much disposed to forget it ourselves.”

      “The mistake is,” remarked Frank Stratton, “to treat with those fellows at all. Why don’t we take a map of Asia and draw a line just where it seems good to us, and bid the dogs keep on their own side of it? Of course they wouldn’t do so—and then we lick’em!”

      His mother looked at him with pride.

      “I respect our constitution,” pursued Mr. Lyster, who was too much absorbed in his own rhetoric to pay much attention to the frivolous remarks of others; “but I’ve often thought it wouldn’t be amiss if we could have a British Bizmarck”—so he pronounced the name. “A Bizmarck would make short work with Radical humbug. He would keep up patriotism; he would remind us of our duties as a civilising power.”

      “And he’d establish conscription,” remarked Frank. “That’s what we want.”

      “Eh? Conscription? Well, I won’t go quite so far as that. It is one of our English glories that there are always men ready to volunteer for active service; men who are prepared to fight and, if need be, to die for their country. I shouldn’t like to see that altered. I think the voluntary system a good one. We are Englishmen; we don’t need to be driven to battle.”

      Robert Asquith glanced at Isabel and smiled.

      The weather was so bad in the afternoon that it was impossible to leave the house. The two young Strattons went to try and break each other’s heads at single-stick; the colonel, with his guests, repaired to the billiard-room,

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