“Not yet! And I see no prospect—we are still talking. We _shall_ until some adventurous spirit among us says, ‘Well, something must be _done_.’ Then we shall go the way of least resistance—always so safe and so unoriginal. Another of those delightful sandwiches, please. Your own Devonshire cream, of course. Why can’t my cook make Devonshire cream? But where was I? Oh yes—the War Memorial. Then we shall erect an artistically offensive monument. Who invented that word, I wonder. And did the word come from the monstrosity, or after? But it is so descriptive of what it is. Yes. And what is your idea of a good memorial, Miss Seer?” “I have only one idea at present,” said Ruth, smiling. “And that is cottages.” “Quite a good one too,” said North. “Why hasn’t anyone thought of it?” “Much too obvious, my dear,” exclaimed Lady Condor. “The people are shrieking to be housed, so we shall build them a library—yes.” “And the Pithians will build themselves winter gardens and billiard-rooms and marble swimming-baths,” said Mrs. Riversley. “Pithians!” exclaimed Lady Condor. “Who was it thanked someone else for a word! Thank you, dear Violet. Did I invent it myself the other day? How clever of me! Pithians—yes. Democracy will kill privilege as it did in France, but the Pithians arise on our ashes—or should it be Phœnix? I am getting dreadfully muddled—it comes from talking too much. Roger, why don’t you talk, instead of letting me monopolize Miss Seer and all the conversation?” “My dear lady, the Pithian glory is but for a moment. We are all converging to the same heap of ashes with amazing velocity, and what will arise from those ashes you must ask a wiser man than I.” “You think seriously of the outlook?” asked Ruth. North helped himself to more bread-and-butter. “I don’t think,” he said. “It won’t bear thinking of—when you can do nothing.” Then Lady Condor, for once, put a straight question without continuation. “What do you think of things?” she asked, looking at Ruth. The silence grew, in some odd way, tense, while they all waited for the answer. It surprised North to find that he was waiting for it with something which distinctly approached interest. Ruth Seer’s face looked troubled for a moment, and the colour came sweeping into it like a flood, and left her very white. When she spoke she felt as if the words came, dragged with difficulty, from some unknown consciousness. And though the words she spoke, undoubtedly she felt to be true, were a testimony of her own faith, yet she had only that moment known the truth she was stating. “I believe,” she said slowly, haltingly, but with a strange intensity of conviction, “I believe we are not alone. Things are in the hands of the men who have given their lives so that things should be different—better. Their influence is here—all about us. They, with added knowledge—guide—through our darkness. It is their great reward.”