Britten wasn't subdued by his first rebuff; presently he was at us again. There were several attempts to check his outbreak of interrogation; I remember the Cramptons asked questions about the welfare of various cousins of Lewis who were unknown to the rest of us, and Margaret tried to engage Britten in a sympathetic discussion of the Arts and Crafts exhibition. But Britten and Esmeer were persistent, Mrs. Millingham was mischievous, and in the end our rising hopes of Young Liberalism took to their thickets for good, while we talked all over them of the prevalent vacuity of political intentions. Margaret was perplexed by me. It is only now I perceive just how perplexing I must have been. “Of course, she said with that faint stress of apprehension in her eyes, one must have aims.” And, “it isn't always easy to put everything into phrases.” “Don't be long,” said Mrs. Edward Crampton to her husband as the wives trooped out. And afterwards when we went upstairs I had an indefinable persuasion that the ladies had been criticising Britten's share in our talk in an altogether unfavourable spirit. Mrs. Edward evidently thought him aggressive and impertinent, and Margaret with a quiet firmness that brooked no resistance, took him at once into a corner and showed him Italian photographs by Coburn. We dispersed early. I walked with Britten along the Chelsea back streets towards Battersea Bridge--he lodged on the south side. “Mrs. Millingham's a dear,” he began. “She's a dear.” “I liked her demand for a hansom because a four-wheeler was too safe.” “She was worked up,” I said. “She's a woman of faultless character, but her instincts, as Altiora would say, are anarchistic--when she gives them a chance.” “So she takes it out in hansom cabs.” “Hansom cabs.” “She's wise,” said Britten.... “I hope, Remington,” he went on after a pause, “I didn't rag your other guests too much. I've a sort of feeling at moments--Remington, those chaps are so infernally not--not bloody. It's part of a man's duty sometimes at least to eat red beef and get drunk. How is he to understand government if he doesn't? It scares me to think of your lot--by a sort of misapprehension--being in power. A kind of neuralgia in the head, by way of government. I don't understand where YOU come in. Those others--they've no lusts. Their ideal is anaemia. You and I, we had at least a lust to take hold of life and make something of it. They--they want to take hold of life and make nothing of it. They want to cut out all the stimulants. Just as though life was anything else but a reaction to stimulation!”...