"Well, it's a town that has changed a good deal of late years. It used to be only an agricultural market, but about twenty years ago a man started a blanket factory, and since then several other industries have shot up. There's a huge sugar-refinery, and a place where they make jams. That kind of thing, you know, affects the spirit of a place. Manufacturers are generally go-ahead people, and mill-hands don't support high Tory doctrine. It'll be interesting to see how they muster. If Liversedge knows how to go to work"--he broke into laughter. "Suppose, when the time comes, I go down and harangue the mob in his favour?" Lilian smiled and shook her head. "I'm afraid you would be calling them 'the mob' to their faces." "Well, why not? I dare say I should do more that way than by talking fudge about the glorious and enlightened people. 'Look here, you blockheads!' I should shout, 'can't you see on which side your interests lie? Are you going to let England be thrown into war and taxes just to please a theatrical Jew and the howling riff-raff of London?' I tell you what, Lily, it seems to me I could make a rattling good speech if I gave my mind to it. Don't you think so?" "There's nothing you couldn't do," she answered, with soft fervour, fixing her eyes upon him. "And yet I do nothing--isn't that what you would like to add?" "Oh, but your book is getting on!" "Yes, yes; so it is. A capital book it'll be, too; a breezy book--smelling of the sea-foam! But, after all, that's only pen-work. I have a notion that I was meant for active life, after all. If I had remained in the Navy, I should have been high up by now. I should have been hoping for war, I dare say. What possibilities there are in every man!" He grew silent, and Lilian, her face shadowed once more, conversed with her own thoughts. CHAPTER II In a room in the west of London--a room full of pictures and bric-a-brac, of quaint and luxurious furniture, with volumes abundant, with a piano in a shadowed corner, a violin and a mandoline laid carelessly aside--two men sat facing each other, their looks expressive of anything but mutual confidence. The one (he wore an overcoat, and had muddy boots) was past middle age, bald, round-shouldered, dressed like a country gentleman; upon his knees lay a small hand-bag, which he seemed about to open. He leaned forward with a face of stern reproach, and put a short, sharp question: "Then why haven't I heard from you since my nephew's death?" The other was not ready with a reply. Younger, and more fashionably attired, he had assumed a lounging attitude which seemed natural to him, though it served also to indicate a mood of resentful superiority. His figure was slight, and not ungraceful; his features--pale, thin, with heavy nose, high forehead--were intellectual and noteworthy, but lacked charm.