k is quite free of them,' said she.

'We will hope that the Irish fever will spare Patrick. He was at a
Jesuit college in France when he was wax. Now he's taking the world.'

'With so little of the Jesuit in him!'

'Little of the worst: a good deal of the best.'

'What is the best?'

'Their training to study. They train you to concentrate the brain upon
the object of study. And they train you to accept service: they fit you
for absolute service: they shape you for your duties in the world; and
so long as they don't smelt a man's private conscience, they are model
masters. Happily Patrick has held his own. Not the Jesuits would have a
chance of keeping a grasp on Patrick! He'll always be a natural boy and
a thoughtful man.'

Jane's features implied a gentle shudder.

'I shake a scarlet cloak to you?' said Philip.

She was directed by his words to think of the scarlet coat. 'I reflect
a little on the substance of things as well,' she said. 'Would not
Patrick's counsels have an influence?'

'Hitherto our Patrick has never presumed to counsel his elder brother.'

'But an officer wearing...'

'The uniform! That would have to be stripped off. There'd be an end to
any professional career.'

'You would not regret it?'

'No sorrow is like a soldier's bidding farewell to flag and comrades.
Happily politics and I have no business together. If the country favours
me with active service I'm satisfied for myself. You asked me for my
opinions: I was bound to give them. Generally I let them rest.'

Could she have had the temerity? Jane marvelled at herself.

She doubted that the weighty pair of tears had dropped for the country.
Captain Con would have shed them over Erin, and many of them. Captain
Philip's tone was too plain and positive: he would be a most practical
unhistrionic rebel.

'You would countenance a revolt?' she said, striking at that extreme to
elicit the favourable answer her tones angled for. And it was instantly:

'Not in arms.' He tried an explanation by likening the dissension to a
wrangle in a civilised family over an unjust division of property.

And here, as he was marking the case with some nicety and difficulty, an
itinerant barrel-organ crashed its tragic tale of music put to torture
at the gate. It yelled of London to Jane, throttled the spirits of the
woods, threw a smoke over the country sky, befouled the pure air she
loved.

The instrument was one of the number which are packed to sui