ith
a political annex"; the latter under the auspices of Miss Churchill.
Churchill himself was to speak; there was a possibility of a
pronouncement. I found London reporters at my inn, men I half knew. They
expressed mitigated delight at the view of me, and over a lunch-table
let me know what "one said"--what one said of the outside of events I
knew too well internally. They most of them had the air of my aunt's
solicitor when he had said, "Even I did not realise...." their positions
saving them the necessity of concealing surprise. "One can't know
_everything_." They fumbled amusingly about the causes, differed with
one another, but were surprisingly unanimous as to effects, as to the
panic and the call for purification. It was rather extraordinary, too,
how large de Mersch loomed on the horizon over here. It was as if the
whole world centred in him, as if he represented the modern spirit that
must be purified away by burning before things could return to their
normal state. I knew what he represented ... but there it was.

It was part of my programme, the attendance at the poultry show; I was
to go back to the cottage with Churchill, after he had made his speech.
It was rather extraordinary, the sensations of that function. I went in
rather late, with the reporter of the _Hour_, who was anxious to do me
the favour of introducing me without payment--it was his way of making
himself pleasant, and I had the reputation of knowing celebrities. It
_was_ rather extraordinary to be back again in the midst of this sort of
thing, to be walking over a crowded, green paddock, hedged in with tall
trees and dotted here and there with the gaily striped species of tent
that is called marquee. And the type of face, and the style of the
costume! They would have seemed impossible the day before yesterday.

There were all Miss Churchill's gang of great dames, muslin, rustling,
marriageable daughters, a continual twitter of voices, and a sprinkling
of the peasantry, dun-coloured and struck speechless.

One of the great ladies surveyed me as I stood in the centre of an open
space, surveyed me through tortoise-shell glasses on the end of a long
handle, and beckoned me to her side.

"You are unattached?" she asked. She had pretensions to voice the
county, just as my aunt undoubtedly set the tone of its doings, decided
who was visitable, and just as Miss Churchill gave the political tone.
"You may wait upon me, then," she said; "my daughte