Then, as the last soldier passed, his car slowly forged its way through the straggling crowd, pressing on behind the regiment—­men of all ages, youths, a few women, young girls, who turned their eyes on him with a negligent stare as if their lives were too remote to permit them to take interest in this passing man at ease.

CHAPTER IV

At Monkland, that same hour, in the little whitewashed ‘withdrawing-room’ of a thatched, whitewashed cottage, two men sat talking, one on either side of the hearth; and in a low chair between them a dark-eyed woman leaned back, watching, the tips of her delicate thin fingers pressed together, or held out transparent towards the fire.  A log, dropping now and then, turned up its glowing underside; and the firelight and the lamplight seemed so to have soaked into the white walls that a wan warmth exuded.  Silvery dun moths, fluttering in from the dark garden, kept vibrating, like spun shillings, over a jade-green bowl of crimson roses; and there was a scent, as ever in that old thatched cottage, of woodsmoke, flowers, and sweetbriar.

The man on the left was perhaps forty, rather above middle height, vigorous, active, straight, with blue eyes and a sanguine face that glowed on small provocation.  His hair was very bright, almost red, and his fiery moustaches which descended to the level of his chin, like Don Quixote’s seemed bristling and charging.

The man on the right was nearer thirty, evidently tall, wiry, and very thin.  He sat rather crumpled, in his low armchair, with hands clasped round a knee; and a little crucified smile haunted the lips of his lean face, which, with its parchmenty, tanned, shaven cheeks, and deep-set, very living eyes, had a certain beauty.

These two men, so extravagantly unlike, looked at each other like neighbouring dogs, who, having long decided that they are better apart, suddenly find that they have met at some spot where they cannot possibly have a fight.  And the woman watched; the owner, as it were, of one, but who, from sheer love of dogs, had always stroked and patted the other.

“So, Mr. Courtier,” said the younger man, whose dry, ironic voice, like his smile, seemed defending the fervid spirit in his eyes; “all you say only amounts, you see, to a defence of the so-called Liberal spirit; and, forgive my candour, that spirit, being an importation from the realms of philosophy and art, withers the moment it touches practical affairs.”

The man with the red moustaches laughed; the sound was queer—­at once so genial and so sardonic.

“Well put!” he said:  “And far be it from me to gainsay.  But since compromise is the very essence of politics, high-priests of caste and authority, like you, Lord Miltoun, are every bit as much out of it as any Liberal professor.”

“I don’t agree!”