‘Undeniable.’

‘But ——­’

‘I was waiting for the but,’ said Morton, with a smile and a nod.

’The brute savagery of it!  The very lingo —­ how appropriate it is!  The tongue of Whitechapel blaring lust of life in the track of English guns!  —­ He knows it; the man is a great artist; he smiles at the voice of his genius. —­ It’s a long time since the end of the Napoleonic wars.  Since then Europe has seen only sputterings of temper.  Mankind won’t stand it much longer, this encroachment of the humane spirit.  See the spread of athletics.  We must look to our physique, and make ourselves ready.  Those Lancashire operatives, laming and killing each other at football, turning a game into a battle.  For the milder of us there’s golf —­ an epidemic.  Women turn to cricket —­ tennis is too soft —­ and tomorrow they’ll be bicycling by the thousand; —­ they must breed a stouter race.  We may reasonably hope, old man, to see our boys blown into small bits by the explosive that hasn’t got its name yet.’

‘Perhaps,’ replied Morton meditatively.  ’And yet there are considerable forces on the other side.’

’Pooh!  The philosopher sitting on the safety-valve.  He has breadth of beam, good sedentary man, but when the moment comes —­ The Empire; that’s beginning to mean something.  The average Englander has never grasped the fact that there was such a thing as a British Empire.  He’s beginning to learn it, and itches to kick somebody, to prove his Imperialism.  The bully of the music-hall shouting “Jingo” had his special audience.  Now comes a man of genius, and decent folk don’t feel ashamed to listen this time.  We begin to feel our position.  We can’t make money quite so easily as we used to; scoundrels in Germany and elsewhere have dared to learn the trick of commerce.  We feel sore, and it’s a great relief to have our advantages pointed out to us.  By God! we are the British Empire, and we’ll just show ’em what that means!’

‘I’m reading the campaigns of Belisarius,’ said Morton, after a pause.

‘What has that to do with it?’

‘Thank Heaven, nothing whatever.’

‘I bore you,’ said Harvey, laughing.  ’Well, I read little or nothing, except what I can use for Hughie.  We’re doing the geography of Asia, and I try to give him a few clear notions.  Do you remember the idiotic way in which they used to teach us geography?  I loathed the lesson. —­ That reminds me; Henrietta Winter is dead.’

‘Is she?  How did it remind you?’

’Why, because Morphew is going to New Zealand.  I had a letter from him this morning.  Here it is.  “I heard yesterday that H. W. is dead.  She died a fortnight ago, and a letter from her mother has only just reached me in a roundabout way.  She had been ailing for some time.  They suspected drains, and had workmen in, with assurance that all had been put right.  Since H.’s death the drains have again been examined, and it was found