never consent to
see their brethren and co-religionists handed over--"

Lady Moyne turned to me and smiled again. I am sixty years of age, but
her smile gave me so much pleasure that I failed to hear the rest of
what Babberly said.

When at the end of dinner Lady Moyne left us, we congregated round the
other end of the table, and everybody talked loud; everybody, that is,
except Moyne and me. Moyne looked to me very much as if he wanted to
go to sleep. He blinked a good deal, and when he got his eyes open
seemed to hold them in that state with considerable effort. I did not
feel sleepy, and became more and more interested as the conversation
round me grew more violent. Babberly talked about a campaign among the
English constituencies. He had a curious and quite pathetic faith in
the gullibility of the British working-man. Nobody listened much to
Babberly. The Dean prosed on about the effects of the _Ne Temere_
decree. We all said that we agreed with him, and then stopped
listening. Malcolmson got on to field guns, and had an elaborate plan
for training gunners without actual practice. Babberly did not like
this talk about artillery. He kept on saying that we should never get
as far as that. A Mr. Cahoon, who came from Belfast, and spoke with
the same kind of accent as McNeice, prophesied doleful things about
the paralyzing of business under a Home Rule Parliament. What
interested me was, not the conversation which beat fiercely on my
ears, but the personal question, Why had Lady Moyne invited me to this
party?

I am constitutionally incapable of becoming excited about politics,
and have therefore the reputation, quite undeserved, of being that
singular creature, a Liberal peer. Why, being the kind of Gallio I am,
I should have been, like a second Daniel, thrown among these lions, I
could not understand. They were not the least likely to convert me to
their own desperate intensity of feeling. If Lady Moyne wanted to
convert me a far better plan would have been to invite me to her house
after the politicians had gone away. Circe, I imagine, did not attract
new lovers by parading those whom she had already turned into swine.
Nor could I suppose that I had been brought to Castle Affey in order
to convert people like Malcolmson to pacific ways of thought. In the
first place, Lady Moyne did not want him converted. He and his like
were a valuable asset to the Conservative party. And even if she had
wanted them converted I