The meeting broke up in amity and Bendish came out into the purple twilight, taking Val’s arm.  It was gently withdrawn.  “Neuritis again?” said Jack.  “Why don’t you try massage?” He always asked the same question, and, being born to fifteen thousand a year, never read between the lines of Val’s vague reply.  Val had a touch of neuritis in his injured arm two nights out of seven, but he could not find the shillings for his train fare to Salisbury, far less the fees of a professional masseuse.  Bendish, who could have settled that difficulty out of a week’s cigar bills, would have been shocked and distressed if Val had owned to it, but it was beyond the scope of his imagination, though he was a thoughtful young man and quietly did his best to protect Val from the tax of chauffeurs and gamekeepers.  He understood that poor men cannot always find sovereigns.  But he really did not know that sometimes they cannot even find shillings.  Tonight he said, “I can’t think why you don’t get a woman over to massage you,” and then, reverting to the peccant master, “Brown’s a nuisance.  He has a rotten influence on the elder boys.  He’s thick with all that beastly Labour crowd, and I believe Thurlow’s right about his goings on with Warner’s wife, though I wasn’t going to say so to Thurlow.  I do wish he’d do something, then we could fire him.  But we don’t want a row with the N.U.T.”

“You can’t fire a man for his political opinions.”

“Why not, if they’re wrong?” said Bendish placidly.

His was the creed that Labour men are so slow to understand because it is so slow to explain itself:  not a blind prejudice, but the reasonable faith of one who feels himself to belong to an hereditary officer caste for whom privilege and responsibility go hand in hand.  And an excellent working rule it is so long as practice is not divorced from theory:  so long as the average member of the governing class acts up to the tradition of government, be he sachem or daimio or resident English squire.  It amused Val:  but he admired it.

“Brown is a thorn in Jimmy’s side,” he remarked, dropping the impersonal issue.  “I never in my life heard a man make such a disagreeable noise on the organ.  I tackled him about it last Sunday.  He said it ciphered, but organs don’t cipher in dry weather, so I went to look at it and found three or four keys glued together with candle grease.”

“Filthy swine!  Are you coming round to Wanhope?  I have to call in on my way home, my wife’s dining there.”

Val made no reply.  “Are you coming up or not?  You look fagged, Val,” said Bendish affectionately.  “Anything wrong?”

“No:  I was only wondering whether I’d get you to take a message for me, but I’d better go myself.”

Bendish nodded.  “Just as you like.  Have you settled yet about the Etchingham agency?”

“No, I’m waiting for Bernard.”