Bob fiercely rumbled: 

“I don’t think we’re all right.  This habit of thinking in men is dangerous.  What are men without munitions?  And without a clean administration?  Nothing but a rabble.  It is notorious that the Russians are running short of munitions and that the administration from top to bottom consists of outrageous rascals.  Moreover I see to-day a report that the Germans have won a big victory at Kutno.  I’ve been expecting that.  That’s the beginning—­mark me!”

“Yes,” Sir Francis cheerfully agreed.  “Yes.  We’re spending one million a day, and now income tax is doubled!  The country cannot stand it indefinitely, and since our only hope lies in our being able to stand it indefinitely, there is no hope—­at any rate for unbiased minds.  Facts are facts, I fear.”

Bob cried impatiently: 

“Unbiased be damned!  I don’t want to be unbiased.  I won’t be.  I had enough of being unbiased when I was on the Bench, and I don’t care what any of you unbiased people say—­I believe we shall win.”

G.J. suddenly saw a boy in the old man, and suddenly he too became boyish, remembering what he had said to Christine about the war not having begun yet; and with fervour he concurred: 

“So do I.”

He rose, moved—­relieved after a tension which he had not noticed until it was broken.  It was time for him to go.  The two old men were recalled to the fact of his presence.  Bob raised the newspaper again.

Sir Francis asked: 

“Are you going to the—­er—­affair in the City?”

“Yes,” said G.J. with careful unconcern.

“I had thought of going.  My granddaughter worried me till I consented to take her.  I got two tickets; but no sooner had I arrayed myself this morning than she rang me up to say that her baby was teething and she couldn’t leave it.  In view of this important creature’s indisposition I sent the tickets back to the Dean and changed my clothes.  Great-grandfathers have to be philosophers.  I say, Hoape, they tell me you play uncommonly good auction bridge.”

“I play,” said G.J. modestly.  “But no better than I ought.”

“You might care to make a fourth this afternoon, in the card-room.”

“I should have been delighted to, but I’ve got one of these war-committees at six o’clock.”  Again he spoke with careful unconcern, masking a considerable self-satisfaction.

Chapter 10

THE MISSION

The great dim place was full, but crowding had not been permitted.  With a few exceptions in the outlying parts, everybody had a seat.  G.J. was favourably placed for seeing the whole length of the interior.  Accustomed to the restaurants of fashionable hotels, auction-rooms, theatrical first-nights, the haunts of sport, clubs, and courts of justice, he soon perceived, from the numerous samples which he himself was able to identify, that all the London worlds were fully represented in the multitude—­the official world, the political, the clerical, the legal, the municipal, the military, the artistic, the literary, the dilettante, the financial, the sporting, and the world whose sole object in life apparently is to be observed and recorded at all gatherings to which admittance is gained by privilege and influence alone.