Lola was excited and on her mettle. She was nearing the crossroads. On the one that she had marked out stood Fallaray,—the merest speck. Success with Aunt Hannah meant the first rung of her ladder. Oxford Street was like a once smart woman who had become _déclassé_. It seemed to be competing with High Street, Putney. There was something pathetically blatant in the shop window arrangements, a strained effort to catch what little money was left to the public after the struggle to make both ends meet and pay the overwhelming taxation. The two young people were unconscious of the change. Lola babbled incessantly. Among other things she said, “I suppose you’re a socialist, aren’t you, Ernest? You’ve never discussed it with me, but I think you must be because you write poetry, and somehow all poets seem to be socialists. I suppose it’s because poetry’s so badly paid.” “I dunno about that. I’ve never tried to sell my stuff. I’m against everything and everybody, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t know whether it’s true to call it Socialism. There’s a new word for it which suits me,—intelligensia. I don’t think that’s the way to pronounce it but it’s near enough. It’s in all the weekly papers now and stands for anarchy with hair oil on the bombs. Why do you ask me?” Lola still had her hand on his arm. “Well, I’m afraid I’m going to give you a shock soon. I’m going to be a servant.” “Good God,” said Ernest. His grandfather had been a valet, his father a piano tuner, he himself had risen to the heights of assistant librarian in a public library, and if his ambition to become a Labor member ever was realized he might very easily wind up as a peer. His children would then belong to the new aristocracy with Lola as Lady Treadwell. He gasped under the blow. “What will your mother say?” “I’m afraid Mother will hang her head in shame until she gets my angle of it. Luckily I can always point to Aunt. She’s a housekeeper, you see, and after all that’s only a sort of upper servant, isn’t it?” “But,—what’s the idea?” This was not a question to which Lola had any intention of giving an answer. It was a perfectly private affair. She went off at one of her inevitable tangents so useful in order to dodge issues. She pointed to an enormous Rolls-Royce which stood outside Selfridge’s. On the panel was painted a coat of arms as big as a soup tureen. She held Ernest back to watch the peculiar people who descended from it,—the man small and fat, with bandy legs and a great moustache waxed into points; the woman bulbous and wobbly, cluttered up with diamonds, made pathetic by a skirt that was almost up to her knees. What an excellent thing the War had been for them. “New rich,” said Lola. “I saw them the other day coming out of a house at the top of Park Lane which Father told me used to belong to a Duke. Good Lord, why shouldn’t I be a servant without causing a crack in the constitution of the country?”