“It isn’t only the English labouring classes in whom I am interested,” she replied impatiently.  “It is the cause of the people throughout the whole of the world which in my small way I preach.”

“Your own country,” he continued, a little diffidently, “is scarcely a good advertisement for the cause of social reform.”

Her tone trembled with indignation as she answered him.

“My own country,” she said, “has suffered for so many centuries from such terrible oppression that the reaction was bound, in its first stages, to produce nothing but chaos.  Automatically, all that seems to you unreasonable, wicked even, in a way, horrible—­ will in the course of time disappear.  Russia will find herself.  In twenty years’ time her democracy will have solved the great problem, and Russia be the foremost republic of the world.”

“Meanwhile,” he remarked, “she is letting us down pretty badly.”

“But you are selfish, you English!” she exclaimed.  “You see one of the greatest nations in the world going through its hour of agony, and you think nothing but how you yourselves will be affected!  Every thinking person in Russia regrets that this thing should have come to pass at such a time.  Yet it is best for you English to look the truth in the face.  It wasn’t the Russian people who were pledged to you, with whom you were bound in alliance.  It was that accursed trick all European politicians have of making secret treaties and secret understandings, building up buffer States, trying to whittle away a piece of the map for yourselves, trying all the time to be dishonest under the shadow of what is called diplomacy.  That is what brought the war about.  It was never the will of the people.  It was the Hohenzollerns and the Romanoffs, the firebrands of the French Cabinet, and your own clumsy, thick-headed efforts to get the best of everybody and yet keep your Nonconformist conscience.  The people did not make this war, but it is the people who are going to end it.”

They walked in silence for some minutes, he apparently pondering over her last words, she with the cloud passing from her face as, with her head a little thrown back and her eyes half-closed, she sniffed the strong, salty air with an almost voluptuous expression of content.  She was perfectly dressed for the country, from her square-toed shoes, which still seemed to maintain some distinction of shape, the perfectly tailored coat and skirt, to the smart little felt hat with its single quill.  She walked with the free grace of an athlete, unembarrassed with the difficulties of the way or the gusts which swept across the marshy places, yet not even the strengthening breeze, which as they reached the sea line became almost a gale, seemed to have power to bring even the faintest flush of colour to her cheeks.  They reached the long headland and stood looking out at the sea before she spoke again.

“You were very kind to me last night, Mr. Orden,” she said, a little abruptly.