By its rules the Eclectic Club is constituted a “place of social intercourse for officers and gentlemen, irrespective of politics”. Any demonstration, other than occasional groans when a labour victory was announced, would have been ill-received; but I was struck chiefly by the absence of all desire to demonstrate except when objects of personal venom appeared at the bottom of the poll. Dainton thumped my back with furtive violence when two rich and rather questionable private secretaries, from his own party, were at last “put out of harm’s way”, as he expressed it; and Jellaby became almost hysterical as one coalition-liberal after another was edged into the cold; but it was left to my father-in-law to express the rapture of his associates in a series of satisfied grunts. Without looking at the board, I could recognize a conservative gain by Crawleigh’s long “A-a-ah!” “The entry of the first French troops into their recovered provinces,” I murmured to Jellaby. “And yet . . . they don’t seem as much pleased about it as I should have expected.” “Perhaps these fellows feel that it’s the same board, the same problem, and that it becomes no easier by a shuffle of the pieces. Perhaps they’re wondering what more they can do than the coalition to prevent a world-revolution or a new world-war.” Jellaby looked contemptuously at the lengthening tale of ministerial successes: “Perhaps they realize that these results don’t represent the true strength of parties.” “You mean it’s a moral victory for you?,” I asked. “I said the same thing to you when I was beaten at Cranborne in 1910. With respect I think the feeling of the country is admirably represented in this club to-night: nobody cares.” With that I left him. Seven men, I think, said good-night to me as I crossed the hall; six of them added: “Well, thank God _that’s_ over.” There was a further spasm of excitement as the new parliament met; and for me, though I was preoccupied with Barbara’s return, a stab of regret when the liberal party had to surrender its historic claim to lead the opposition. Then one of the shortest sessions on record opened and closed; the foreign secretary set out for Lausanne to find an escape from the threatened war in the near east; and the country gave its undivided attention to the most popular murder-trial of the year. Save for a moment after Bertrand’s memorial service, I had not been alone with Barbara since our scene in the car. I fancied that she was hardly less embarrassed than I was, though she talked easily enough of her plans for being painted by Edmund Wace and of my work on Bertrand’s papers. We both felt that nothing could be quite the same after that explosion; but I at least had no idea what she wanted. “There was a touch of brutality about your uncle,” she said after dinner the first night, in criticism of my sketch. “I’m not sure that you bring it out. Any one who disagreed with him was treated with such obvious contempt.”