"How
unpleasant to have any one else going about with a mouth exactly
like one's own! No, I never had a brother, Mr. Orden, or a
sister, and, as you may have heard, I am an enfant mechante. I
live in London, I model very well, and I talk very bad sociology.
As I think I told you, I know your anarchist friend, Miles
Furley."
"I shouldn't call Furley an anarchist," protested Julian.
"Well, he is a Socialist. I admit that we are rather lax in our
definitions. You see, there is just one subject, of late years,
which has brought together the Socialists and the Labour men, the
Syndicalists and the Communists, the Nationalists and the
Internationalists. All those who work for freedom are learning
breadth. If they ever find a leader, I think that this dear, smug
country of yours may have to face the greatest surprise of its
existence."
Julian looked at her curiously.
"You have ideas, Miss Abbeway."
"So unusual in a woman!" she mocked. "Do you notice how every one
is trying to avoid the subject of the war? I give them another
half-course, don't you? I am sure they cannot keep it up."
"They won't go the distance," Julian whispered. "Listen."
"The question to be considered," Lord Shervinton pronounced, "is
not so much when the war will be over as what there is to stop it?
That is a point which I think we can discuss without inviting
official indiscretions."
"If other means fail," declared the Bishop, "Christianity will
stop it.
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