to a dictatorship.  We have drawn them into our party through detaching the units.  We have never been able to capture them as a whole.  Even to-day their leaders are in a curiously anomalous position.  They see their power going in the dawn of a more socialistic age.  They cannot refuse to accept our principles but in their hearts they know that our triumph sounds the death knell to their power.  This article of Tallente’s would give them a wonderful chance.  Out of very desperation they will seize upon it.”

“Have you read the article?” Jane enquired.

“This evening, just before I came,” Dartrey replied gravely.

“I can understand,” Tallente intervened, “that you feel bound to take this seriously, Dartrey, but after all there is nothing traitorous to our cause in what I wrote.  I attacked the trades unions for their colossal and fiendish selfishness when the Empire was tottering.  I would do it again under the same circumstances.  Remember I was fresh from Ypres.  I had seen Englishmen, not soldiers but just hastily trained citizens—­bakers, commercial travellers, clerks, small tradesmen—­butchered like rabbits but fighting for their country, dying for it—­and all the time those blackguardly stump orators at home turned their backs to France and thought the time opportune to wrangle for a rise in wages and bring the country to the very verge of a universal strike.  It didn’t come off, I know, but there were very few people who really understood how near we were to it.  Dartrey, we sacrifice too much of our real feelings to political necessity.  I won’t apologize for my article; I’ll defend it.”

Dartrey sighed.

“It will be a difficult task, Tallente.  The spirit has gone.  People have forgotten already the danger which we so narrowly escaped—­forgotten before the grass has grown on the graves of our saviours.”

“Still, you wouldn’t have Mr. Tallente give in without a struggle?” Jane asked.

“I hope that Tallente will fight,” Dartrey replied, “but I must warn you, Lady Jane, that I am the guardian of a cause, and for that reason I am an opportunist.  If the division of our party which consists of the trades unionists refuses to listen to any explanation and threatens severance if Tallente remains, then he will have to go.”

“So far as your personal view is concerned,” Tallente asked, “you could do without Miller, couldn’t you?”

“I could thrive without him,” Dartrey declared heartily.

“Then you shall,” Tallente asserted.  “We’ll show the world what his local trades unionism stands for.  He has belittled the whole principle of cooperation.  He twangs all the time one brazen chord instead of seeking to give expression to the clear voices of the millions.  Miller would impoverish the country with his accursed limited production, his threatened strikes, his parochial outlook.  Englishmen are brimful of common sense, Dartrey, if you know where to dig for it.  We’ll materialise your own dream.  We’ll bring the principles of socialism into our human and daily life and those octopus trades unions shall feel the knife.”