e Minister
won't be disagreeable to--. It would have been better, much better, if
she'd gone to Castle Affey."

"You needn't be a bit afraid of that," I said.

This time I spoke with real assurance. No man living could be
disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. When she left
Belfast she was so much in earnest and so anxious, that she would
certainly smile her very best at the Prime Minister.

"I don't know," said Moyne. "He may hold her responsible to some
extent. And she is, you know. That's the worst of it, she is. We all
are."

"Not at all," I said.

"Oh, but we are," said Moyne. "I feel that. I wish to goodness we'd
never--"

"What I mean is that the Prime Minister won't hold her responsible.
After all, Moyne, he's a politician himself. He'll understand."

"But we said--we kept on saying--Babberly and all of us--"

Moyne was becoming morbid.

"Don't be a fool," I said. "Of course we said things. Everybody does.
But we never intended to do them. Any one accustomed to politics will
understand that. I expect the Prime Minister will be particularly
civil to Lady Moyne. He'll see the hole she's in."

CHAPTER XXI

I went down to the club next morning at about half-past ten o'clock,
hoping to see Conroy. He, so I thought, might be able to tell me what
was likely to happen during the day. Moyne could tell me nothing. I
left him in the hotel, desperately determined to take the chair at any
meeting that might be held; but very doubtful about how he was to do
it.

The streets were much less obviously martial than they had been the
night before. There were no soldiers to be seen. There were only a
very few volunteers, and they did not seem to be doing anything
particular. The police--there were not even many of them--looked quite
peaceable, as if they had no more terrific duties to perform than the
regulation of traffic and the arrest of errant drunkards. I began to
think that I had accidentally told Moyne the truth the night before.
All our warriors seemed to be in bed, exhausted by their marching and
counter-marching. I did not even see McConkey with his machine gun.
This disappointed me. I thought McConkey was a man of more grit. One
night's work ought not to have tired him out.

Clithering was in the club. He, at all events, was still active. Very
likely he was caught the night before by some patrolling party and
forced to go to bed. Unless he happened to be carrying some sort of
certifi