Lord Shervinton assented. “To-night you have Catherine Abbeway,” he expounded, “as she might have been but for these queer, alternating crazes of hers--art and socialism. Her brain was developed a little too early, and she was unfortunately, almost in her girlhood, thrown in with a little clique of brilliant young Russians who attained a great influence over her. Most of them are in Siberia or have disappeared by now. One Anna Katinski--was brought back from Tobolsk like a royal princess on the first day of the revolution.” “It is strange,” the Earl pronounced didactically, “that a young lady of Miss Abbeway’s birth and gifts should espouse the cause of this Labour rabble, a party already cursed with too many leaders.” “A woman, when she takes up a cause,” Mr. Hannaway Wells observed, “always seeks either for the picturesque or for something which appeals to the emotions. So long as she doesn’t mix with them, the cause of the people has a great deal to recommend it. One can use beautiful phrases, can idealise with a certain amount of logic, and can actually achieve things.” Julian shrugged his shoulders. “I think we are all a little blind,” he remarked, “to the danger in which we stand through the great prosperity of Labour to-day.” The Bishop leaned across the table. “You have been reading Fiske this week.” “Did I quote?” Julian asked carelessly. “I have a wretched memory. I should never dare to become a politician. I should always be passing off other people’s phrases as my own.” “Fiske is quite right in his main contention,” Mr. Stenson interposed. “The war is rapidly creating a new class of bourgeoisie. The very differences in the earning of skilled labourers will bring trouble before long--the miner with his fifty or sixty shillings, and the munition worker with his seven or eight pounds--men drawn from the same class.” “England,” declared the Earl, indulging in his favourite speech, “was never so contented as when wages were at their lowest.” “Those days will never come again,” Mr. Hannaway Wells foretold grimly. “The working man has tasted blood. He has begun to understand his power. Our Ministers have been asleep for a generation. The first of these modern trades unions should have been treated like a secret society in Italy. Look at them now, and what they represent! Fancy what it will mean when they have all learnt to combine!--when Labour produces real leaders!” “Can any one explain the German democracy?” Lord Shervinton enquired.