come in?"

Sir Robin smiled ever so slightly. It was that smile of his, with its
faintest hint of intellectual superiority, that riled the General to
bursting point.

"I don't believe there is a war feeling, Uncle Denis," he said. "The
country has had enough of war. However, I should not come in on top of a
wave of war feeling in any case. You would be quite right in asking
where I should come in. To be sure, I look to come in on top of the
anti-war wave. My side is pledged against war. The working man----"

"You don't mean to say that you're going to appeal to _him_!" Sir Denis
shouted. "You don't mean to say that you're going to side with the
Radicals! I've lived to see many strange things, but--Gerald's son a
Radical!"

He brought out the ejaculations with the sound of guns popping. His face
was red with indignation, his eyes leaping at his degenerate nephew. The
next words did not tend to calm him.

"Do you know, Uncle Denis, I believe that if my father had been a
politician he would have been a Radical? His profound feeling for
Christianity, his adherence to the creed of its Founder, Whose whole
life was a glorification of toil----"

"Spare me, spare me!" cried the General, restraining himself with
difficulty. "So a man can't be a Christian and a gentleman! And you
think your father would have been a Radical! I can tell you, young
gentleman----"

At this moment Nelly came into the room, charming in her short-waisted
frock of white satin, with a little cap of pearls on her hair. Both men
turned and stared at her, pleasure and affection in their eyes.

"So you've been heckling poor Robin as usual," she said, stroking her
father's cheek. "Heckling poor Robin and getting your hair on end like a
fretful porcupine. I'll never be able to make you into a nice, sweet,
quiet old gentleman."

"Turn your attention to him," said the General, indicating his nephew by
an unfriendly nod. "What do you think, Nell? He's a Radical. He's going
to contest a seat for the Radicals. What do you say now?"

"Pooh!" said Nelly, with her pretty chin in the air. "Pooh! Why
shouldn't he? Lots of nice people are Radicals. If he feels that way, of
course he ought to do it."

Robin's unpractical eyes thanked her mutely. He was as plain-looking a
man as he had been a boy, more hatchet-faced than ever. He was long and
lean and angular, and his positions were ungraceful. But his eyes were
the eyes of Don Quixote. The eyes had appealed