“And yet it’s so little I’m asking!,” he sighed. “I only want every man to have freedom to work . . . and save money . . . and marry . . . and have children . . . without interfering with his neighbours . . . and without interference from them. I want him to spend his old age in the comfort and peace of mind which he has earned. His children must be born healthy, to work, to save, to marry, to live and die as he has done. If civilized society can’t give him that . . . And it can’t so long as a country contains one single prison or workhouse or infirmary or brothel . . .” “I suspect there were brothels in the golden age,” I interposed. O’Rane leant forward and gripped my wrist till I winced with the pain. “In the golden age,” he answered between his teeth, “there were hopeless, uncaring cynics, who said that prostitution was the oldest profession in the world. Slavery was the oldest solution of all labour problems. Torture was the oldest safeguard of civil authority. The moral sense of the world must be roused till it sweeps away prostitution and disease, as it swept away torture and slavery. It was not to keep them flourishing that we went to war. And we _can’t_ sweep them away while another war threatens.” . . . He broke off, as my mother came into the garden with the day’s letters; and, as I struggled against the impact of my uncle’s fury, I recognized that I was being assailed by a stronger enthusiast even than O’Rane and being asked to save by propaganda a world that I thought had already been saved by war. 4 Bertrand’s descent upon Cannes may be likened to the unheralded arrival of the headmaster in a form-room that has for some time been left to its own devices. “‘_The Theodosian code_’,” Laurence recited virtuously, “‘_was published in Constantinople on the 15th of February, 438 . . ._’ If Bertrand tries to find me a job, say I’m suited, thank you.” The rest of us, for all our feeling that we were drowsing in a back-water, looked regretfully at the blazing hibiscus-hedge and guiltily at one another. “We all ought to be going back,” said Barbara, who—six weeks before—had never wished to see Dover Cliffs again. I asked what good we could do; I nearly told her what harm we could not avoid doing, for Eric Lane had crossed from New York on O’Rane’s boat and was now in London. Bertrand’s outpouring, however, was beyond the range of argument. “_You will find_,” he predicted, “_that the world is entering on a new glacial age of materialism. We must fight it._” And his method of fighting it was to resurrect our old paper, to set me in the old editorial chair, to sweep the country with new propaganda and to create a new political party in the dining-room of Seymour Street.