He had given Joan the indication that she was looking for as to his attitude towards the fait accompli.  Without asking a question she had discovered that husband and wife were divided on the fundamental issue that underlay all others at the present moment.  Cicely was weaving social schemes for the future, Yeovil had come home in a frame of mind that threatened the destruction of those schemes, or at any rate a serious hindrance to their execution.  The situation presented itself to Joan’s mind with an alluring piquancy.

“You are giving a grand supper-party for Gorla on the night of her debut, aren’t you?” she asked Cicely; “several people spoke to me about it, so I suppose it must be true.”

Tony Luton and young Storre had taken care to spread the news of the projected supper function, in order to ensure against a change of plans on Cicely’s part.

“Gorla is a great friend of mine,” said Cicely, trying to talk as if the conversation had taken a perfectly indifferent turn; “also I think she deserves a little encouragement after the hard work she has been through.  I thought it would be doing her a kindness to arrange a supper party for her on her first night.”

There was a moment’s silence.  Yeovil said nothing, and Joan understood the value of being occasionally tongue-tied.

“The whole question is,” continued Cicely, as the silence became oppressive, “whether one is to mope and hold aloof from the national life, or take our share in it; the life has got to go on whether we participate in it or not.  It seems to me to be more patriotic to come down into the dust of the marketplace than to withdraw oneself behind walls or beyond the seas.”

“Of course the industrial life of the country has to go on,” said Yeovil; “no one could criticise Gorla if she interested herself in organising cottage industries or anything of that sort, in which she would be helping her own people.  That one could understand, but I don’t think a cosmopolitan concern like the music-hall business calls for personal sacrifices from young women of good family at a moment like the present.”

“It is just at a moment like the present that the people want something to interest them and take them out of themselves,” said Cicely argumentatively; “what has happened, has happened, and we can’t undo it or escape the consequences.  What we can do, or attempt to do, is to make things less dreary, and make people less unhappy.”

“In a word, more contented,” said Yeovil; “if I were a German statesman, that is the end I would labour for and encourage others to labour for, to make the people forget that they were discontented.  All this work of regalvanising the social side of London life may be summed up in the phrase ‘travailler pour le roi de Prusse.’”

“I don’t think there is any use in discussing the matter further,” said Cicely.

“I can see that grand supper-party not coming off,” said Joan provocatively.