It'll be too late to want then."

"I gather, Sir James, that you are not exactly a Socialist," murmured
Vane gravely, with a side glance at Joan.

His host rose to the bait. "I--a Socialist--I! Why--why! . . ." he
spluttered, and then he saw his daughter's face. She was dimpling with
laughter, and suddenly Sir James laughed too.

"You nearly had me then, my boy," he cried; "very nearly. But it's on
that point, Vane, that I get so wild with these intellectual men--men
who should know better. Men like Ramage, and Johnson and all that lot.
They know themselves that Socialism is a wild impossibility; they know
that equality is out of the question, and yet they preach it to men who
have not got their brains. It's a dangerously attractive doctrine; the
working man who sees a motor flash past him wouldn't be human if he
didn't feel a tinge of envy. . . . But the Almighty has decreed that
it should be so: and it's flying in His Face to try to change it."

Vane looked thoughtfully at his host. "I fancy the Almighty's dictates
are less likely to be questioned by the motor car owner than by the
working man."

"I agree with you, Vane," returned Sir James at once. "But that
doesn't alter the principle of the thing. . . . By all means improve
their conditions . . . give them better houses . . . stop sweated
labour. That is our privilege and our duty. But if they continue on
their present line, they'll soon find the difference. Things we did
for 'em before, they'll have to whistle for in the future."

"You're getting your money's worth this time, aren't you, Captain
Vane?" said Joan demurely.

But Vane only smiled at her gravely and did not answer. Here were the
views, crudely expressed, perhaps, of the ordinary landed gentleman.
The man who of all others most typically represented feudalism.
Benevolent, perhaps--but feudalism. . . . The old order. "They talk
about 'back to the land,'" snorted Sir James suddenly, "as the
sovereign cure for all evils. You can take it from me, Vane, that
except in a few isolated localities the system of small holdings is
utterly uneconomical and unsuccessful. It means ceaseless work, and a
mere pittance in return. You know Northern France--well, you've got
the small holdings scheme in full blast there. What time do they get
up in the morning; what time do they go to bed at night? What do they
live on? And from what you know of your own fellow countrymen, do you
think any