“The fact is,” Furley confided, “you and I and the Bishop and Miss Abbeway are all to a certain extent out of place on that Council. We ought to have contented ourselves with having supplied the ideas. When it comes to the practical side, our other instincts revolt. After all, if we believed that by continuing the war we could beat Germany from a military point of view, I suppose we should forget a lot of this admirable reasoning of ours and let it go on.”
“It doesn’t seem a fair bargain, though,” Julian sighed. “It’s the lives of our men to-day for the freedom of their descendants, if that isn’t frittered away by another race of politicians. It isn’t good enough, Miles.”
“Then let’s be thankful it’s going to stop,” Furley declared. “We’ve pinned our colours to the mast, Julian. I don’t like Fenn any more than you do, nor do I trust him, but I can’t see, in this instance, that he has anything to gain by not running straight. Besides, he can’t have faked the terms, and that’s the only document that counts. And so good night and to bed,” he added, pausing at the street corner, where they parted.
There was something curiously different about the demeanour of Julian’s trusted servant, as he took his master’s coat and hat. Even Julian, engrossed as he was in the happenings of the evening, could scarcely fail to notice it.
“You seem out of sorts to-night, Robert!” he remarked.
The latter, whose manners were usually suave and excellent, answered almost harshly.
“I have enough to make me so, sir--more than enough. I wish to give a week’s notice.”
“Been drinking, Robert?” his master enquired.
“I am quite sober, sir,” he answered, “but I should be glad to go at once. It would be better for both of us.”
“What have you against me?” Julian asked, puzzled.
“The lives of my two boys,” was the fierce reply. “Fred’s gone now--died in hospital last night. It was you who talked them into soldiering.”
Julian’s manner changed at once, and his tone became kinder.
“You are very foolish to blame anybody, Robert. Your sons did their duty. If they hadn’t joined up when they did, they would have had to join as conscripts later on.”
“Their duty!” Robert repeated, with smothered scorn. “Their duty to a squirming nest of cowardly politicians--begging your pardon, sir. Why, the whole Government isn’t worth the blood of one of them!”