The result of the new negotiations has passed into history; and from first to last I was narrowly preoccupied with their effect on my own fortunes. If the south-west of Ireland became habitable again, I was resolved to make it my home; and, at the end of many months’ parleying, I was wakened by a telephone-message from my uncle to say that a settlement had been reached. After threatening reconquest, the government had ascertained that to “reconquer” Ireland would cost as much and take as long as the last South African war; those who had preached coercion changed their text to conciliation; and, as I passed through Inverness, the king’s ministers were meeting the ministers of President de Valera on equal terms. “The treaty,” Bertrand’s message ran, “was signed in the small hours. Outside a portion of Ulster, Ireland is to be a Free State.” “And now,” I answered, “and now . . . now perhaps we may see home-rule for England.” In 1906 I had brought a young man’s ideals to Westminster; thirty years before me, my father had done the same; and ten years before him, though he might now call his ideals illusions, Bertrand had entered parliament with hope and vision. One after another, each in our generation, we had seen our vision clouded and our hope deferred by the shadow of Ireland. “May I go home now?,” I asked. “I can’t spare you yet,” Bertrand sighed. “The trouble’s not over. There are thousands of Irishmen who’ve taken a solemn oath of allegiance to the republic for which their fathers and brothers laid down their lives. There are thousands of English who will say in every passing difficulty: ‘I _told_ you so! Ireland is unfit for self-government.’ We must preach patience, George. We must try to sweeten the bitter taste that all this blood has left on our lips. Lake House can get along without you for the present.” “I was only thinking Barbara and I should be the better for a change,” I answered with deliberate vagueness. If I kept my disappointment to myself, I could not help being disappointed. This talk of peace had suddenly opened an unexpected vista of escape from the “gilded cage”; and my single glimpse of freedom convinced me that I could not continue the armed neutrality which Barbara had been imposing on me for a twelvemonth. We must be reconciled or divorced. If we could separate even for a short time, we might be able to decide what we wanted. I therefore told Bertrand that he must not count on me indefinitely; and the old man shewed the wisdom to give me my change by sending me to America for the Washington Conference. “One of us ought to be there; and I’m too old,” he explained. “I don’t know what stuffing the new president has inside him; but this is the first serious effort to undo the harm of the Versailles treaty, and Harding is the first responsible statesman to say frankly that we’re all committing financial suicide. You’ll go?” “I will,” I promised. “And you’ll take Barbara?” “I’ll talk to her about it.”