“It _may_. If anything _does_ go wrong and one of us has to die, promise you’ll let it be me!” I was dispensed from answering by Barbara’s sudden surrender to hysterics. When she was recovered, I put her to bed and sent for Gaisford; as soon as he allowed her up, I took her to Crawleigh Abbey and left her to recuperate from something which the doctor described enigmatically as “a nervous breakdown that didn’t come off”. “I’ve been expecting this for years,” he told me. “And for years I’ve felt that she’d be a healthier, happier woman when she had some brats to look after. This business about Eric Lane must have been a shock to her.” “Well, thank Heaven, that’s all over,” I said. “At last,” Gaisford grunted. “If you’re going down to Crawleigh . . .” “I shall stay here, except for week-ends, unless I’m sent for,” I interrupted. “This is going to be a busy time. The peace terms are to be signed within the next few days.” “I wonder what kind of mess they’ve been making out there,” Gaisford mused. “You’re convinced it _will_ be a mess?” “My dear George, when two human beings get together, they always make a big mess,” he answered with more than his usual misanthropy; “and I’ve known human beings who could make a fair-sized mess with their four unaided paws.” 6 The peace of Versailles was celebrated in London with thanksgivings by day and fireworks at night. “I wonder why,” said Bertrand sadly. “Lady Dainton wants me to bring you to her party at the Excelsior,” I said, though, when he repeated: “I wonder why”, it was not easy to find a convincing answer. “Are _you_ going?” he asked suspiciously, as though I were revenging myself on him for my dinners in Rutland Gate. “Yes,” I answered. “I wonder why myself; but I’m a bachelor at present and I must dine somewhere.” “All right,” sighed my uncle; and, on that, we drove to the office and sat until seven o’clock considering the terms and discussing, with Spence-Atkins and any one else who drifted in, what the future policy of our paper was to be. For several weeks the dearth of news in Fetter Lane and the claims of outside interests had brought our fragile bantling to the verge of death by starvation. Ministers, I thought, revealed a shrewd knowledge of mass-psychology in denying us all news of the conference. “Kid asks for a thing,” explained Sir Philip Saltash, when I loosed a grumble in his hearing; “you refuse it; kid screams. Go on refusing it; kid goes on screaming. Go on refusing still; kid thinks of something else.”