in his desire to shield his
Princess's action from vain conjecture. It were better that he should
be supposed, in vulgar phrase, to have roped her in, as he had roped in
a hundred other celebrities in his time. For there the matter ended. On
the other hand, if he proclaimed the lady's spontaneous offer, it might
be subjected to heaven knew how many interpretations. Paul owed much of
his success in the world to such instinctive delicacies. He worked far
into the night, composing his speech on England's greatness to the
beautiful eyes of his French Princess.

The Young England League was his pet political interest. It had been
inaugurated some years before he joined the Winwoods. Its objects were
the training of the youth, the future electorate of England, in the
doctrines of Imperialism, Constitutionalism and sound civicism, as
understood by the intellectual Conservatives. Its mechanical aims were
to establish lodges throughout the country. Every town and rural
district should have its lodge, in connection wherewith should be not
only addresses on political and social subjects, but also football and
cricket clubs, entertainments for both sexes such as dances,
whist-drives, excursions of archaeological and educational interest,
and lantern (and, later, cinematographic) lectures on the wide aspects
of Imperial Britain. Its appeal was to the young, the recruit in the
battle of life, who in a year or two would qualify for a vote and,
except for blind passion and prejudice, not know what the deuce to do
with it. The octogenarian Earl of Watford was President; Colonel
Winwood was one of a long list of Vice-Presidents; Miss Winwood was on
the Council; a General Hankin, a fussy, incompetent person past his
prime, was Honorary Secretary.

Paul worked with his employers for a year on the League thinking little
of its effectiveness. One day, when they spoke despairingly of
progress, he said, not in so many words, but in effect: "Don't you see
what's wrong? This thing is run for young people, and you've got old
fossils like Lord Watford and General Hankin running it. Let me be
Assistant Secretary to Hankin' and I'll make things hum."

And thinking the words of the youth were wise, they used their
influence with the Council, and Paul became Assistant Secretary, and
after a year or two things began to hum so disconcertingly that General
Hankin resigned in order to take the Presidency of the Wellingtonian
Defence Association, and a