“I’m delighted to hear it!”

The exclamation lingered a little, and there was involuntary surprise on Mrs. Wade’s features.  She cast a glance round the room.

“Do sit down,” urged Denzil, placing a chair.  “What do you think of Dizzy’s letter?  Did you ever read such bunkum?  And his ’men of light and leading’—­ha, ha, ha!”

“He has stolen the phrase,” remarked Mrs. Wade.  “Where from, I can’t say; but I’m perfectly sure I have come across it.”

“Ha!  I wish we could authenticate that!  Search your memory—­do—­ and get a letter in the Examiner on Saturday.”

“Some one will be out with it before then.  Besides, I’m sure you don’t wish for me to draw attention to myself just now.”

“Why not?  I shall be disappointed if you don’t give me a great deal of help.”

“I am hardly proper, you know.”

She looked steadily at him, with an inscrutable smile, then let her eyes again stray round the room.

“Bosh!  As I was saying to Lily at lunch, women ought to have a particular interest in this election.  If they are worth anything at all, they will declare that England sha’n’t go in for the chance of war just to please that Jew phrase-monger.  I’m ready enough for a fight, on sound occasion, but I won’t fight in obedience to Dizzy and the music-halls!  By jingo, no!”

He laughed uproariously.

“You won’t get many Polterham women to see it in that light,” observed the widow.  “This talk about the ascendency of England is just the thing to please them.  They adore Dizzy, because he is a fop who has succeeded brilliantly; they despise Gladstone, because he is conscientious and an idealist.  Surely I don’t need to tell you this?”

She leaned forward, smiling into his face.

“Well,” he exclaimed, with a laugh, “of course I can admit, if you like, that most women are not worth anything politically.  But why should I be uncivil?”

Mrs. Wade answered in a low voice, strangely gentle.

“Don’t I know their silliness and worthlessness?  What woman has more reason to be ashamed of her sex?”

“Let us—­hope!”

“For the millennium—­yes.”  Her eyes gleamed, and she went on in a more accustomed tone.  “Women are the great reactionary force.  In political and social matters their native baseness shows itself on a large scale.  They worship the vulgar, the pretentious, the false.  Here they will most of them pester their husbands to vote for Welwyn-Baker just because they hate change with the hatred of weak fear.  Those of them who know anything at all about the Irish question are dead set against Ireland—­simply because they are unimaginative and ungenerous; they can’t sympathize with what seems a hopeless cause, and Ireland to them only suggests the dirty Irish of Polterham back streets.  As for European war, the idiots are fond of drums and fifes and military swagger; they haven’t brains enough to picture a battle-field.”