“Not in the least,” said Cicely, “he’s quite broad-minded on most subjects, and he realises that this is an age in which sensible people know thoroughly well what they want, and are determined to get what they want.  It pleases me to see a lot of you, and to spoil you and pay you extravagant compliments about your good looks and your music, and to imagine at times that I’m in danger of getting fond of you; I don’t see any harm in it, and I don’t suppose Murrey will either—­in fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if he takes rather a liking to you.  No, it’s the general situation that will trouble and exasperate him; he’s not had time to get accustomed to the fait accompli like we have.  It will break on him with horrible suddenness.”

“He was somewhere in Russia when the war broke out, wasn’t he?” said Ronnie.

“Somewhere in the wilds of Eastern Siberia, shooting and bird collecting, miles away from a railway or telegraph line, and it was all over before he knew anything about it; it didn’t last very long, when you come to think of it.  He was due home somewhere about that time, and when the weeks slipped by without my hearing from him, I quite thought he’d been captured in the Baltic or somewhere on the way back.  It turned out that he was down with marsh fever in some out-of-the-way spot, and everything was over and finished with before he got back to civilisation and newspapers.”

“It must have been a bit of a shock,” said Ronnie, busy with a well-devised salad; “still, I don’t see why there should be domestic storms when he comes back.  You are hardly responsible for the catastrophe that has happened.”

“No,” said Cicely, “but he’ll come back naturally feeling sore and savage with everything he sees around him, and he won’t realise just at once that we’ve been through all that ourselves, and have reached the stage of sullen acquiescence in what can’t be helped.  He won’t understand, for instance, how we can be enthusiastic and excited over Gorla Mustelford’s debut, and things of that sort; he’ll think we are a set of callous revellers, fiddling while Rome is burning.”

“In this case,” said Ronnie, “Rome isn’t burning, it’s burnt.  All that remains to be done is to rebuild it—­when possible.”

“Exactly, and he’ll say we’re not doing much towards helping at that.”

“But,” protested Ronnie, “the whole thing has only just happened; ’Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ and we can’t rebuild our Rome in a day.”

“I know,” said Cicely, “but so many of our friends, and especially Murrey’s friends, have taken the thing in a tragical fashion, and cleared off to the Colonies, or shut themselves up in their country houses, as though there was a sort of moral leprosy infecting London.”

“I don’t see what good that does,” said Ronnie.

“It doesn’t do any good, but it’s what a lot of them have done because they felt like doing it, and Murrey will feel like doing it too.  That is where I foresee trouble and disagreement.”