We were not encouraged by O’Rane’s tone to break the rather embarrassing silence that followed. I had noticed before dinner that he and his wife had not merely—in the language of stage directions—“come into the room”; they had “entered, conversing with animation”. As we drove home, I asked Barbara whether Violet had effected a reconciliation. “If he publishes any more articles, Sonia will repudiate them,” she answered. “And if he repudiates her repudiation?” “She’ll repudiate him.” “Um. I rather hoped, when I saw them together . . .” “Husbands and wives who get on well in public always arouse my worst suspicions,” said Barbara. “No, there’s no change.” I was still pondering our hard-worked phrase when we re-entered our “gilded cage”; and Barbara had slipped away to bed before I could ask her whether a man erred more grievously by doing everything that his wife demanded or nothing. CHAPTER FIVE “UN SACRIFICE INUTILE” “. . . They say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony; Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain; For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.” . . . SHAKESPEARE: _King Richard II_. 1 “On the turf,” expounded my uncle Bertrand, “races are won by the intelligence of the individual backer. It is only when you lose that you divide the responsibility between the breeder, the trainer, the jockey and the horse. That is why the sporting tipster is the happiest of men. Why shouldn’t we call ourselves ‘the Brigadier’ and run a sporting column in _Peace_? You and I, George, get neither pleasure nor profit from seeing our political forecasts being fulfilled.” . . . “Perhaps, if we’d backed our fancy . . .” I began. “I’ve backed _Peace_,” said my uncle grimly, “to a tune that would make an unsuccessful racing-stable seem like a safe investment. I pay tens of thousands a year for the privilege of casting myself for the part of Cassandra. We _can’t_ be so much cleverer than other people . . .” “If we were,” I interrupted, “we might make them believe what we tell them.” “The world believes what it wants to believe,” said Bertrand. “And is quite unabashed when it’s proved wrong,” I added, as I pocketed the article which I had brought to Princes Gardens for my uncle’s _imprimatur_.