’It’s, I think, the Hastings:  she broke down the other day on her trial trip,’ said Beauchamp, watching the ship’s progress animatedly.  ’Peppel commands her—­a capital officer.  I suppose we must have these costly big floating barracks.  I don’t like to hear of everything being done for the defensive.  The defensive is perilous policy in war.  It’s true, the English don’t wake up to their work under half a year.  But, no:  defending and looking to defences is bad for the fighting power; and there’s half a million gone on that ship.  Half a million!  Do you know how many poor taxpayers it takes to make up that sum, Cecilia?’

‘A great many,’ she slurred over them; ’but we must have big ships, and the best that are to be had.’

’Powerful fast rams, sea-worthy and fit for running over shallows, carrying one big gun; swarms of harryers and worriers known to be kept ready for immediate service; readiness for the offensive in case of war—­there’s the best defence against a declaration of war by a foreign State.’

‘I like to hear you, Nevil,’ said Cecilia, beaming:  ’Papa thinks we have a miserable army—­in numbers.  He says, the wealthier we become the more difficult it is to recruit able-bodied men on the volunteering system.  Yet the wealthier we are the more an army is wanted, both to defend our wealth and to preserve order.  I fancy he half inclines to compulsory enlistment.  Do speak to him on that subject.’

Cecilia must have been innocent of a design to awaken the fire-flash in Nevil’s eyes.  She had no design, but hostility was latent, and hence perhaps the offending phrase.

He nodded and spoke coolly.  ’An army to preserve order?  So, then, an army to threaten civil war!’

‘To crush revolutionists.’

’Agitators, you mean.  My dear good old colonel—­I have always loved him—­must not have more troops at his command.’

‘Do you object to the drilling of the whole of the people?’

’Does not the colonel, Cecilia?  I am sure he does in his heart, and, for different reasons, I do.  He won’t trust the working-classes, nor I the middle.’

‘Does Dr. Shrapnel hate the middle-class?’

’Dr. Shrapnel cannot hate.  He and I are of opinion, that as the middle-class are the party in power, they would not, if they knew the use of arms, move an inch farther in Reform, for they would no longer be in fear of the class below them.’

’But what horrible notions of your country have you, Nevil!  It is dreadful to hear.  Oh! do let us avoid politics for ever.  Fear!’

‘All concessions to the people have been won from fear.’

‘I have not heard so.’

‘I will read it to you in the History of England.’

‘You paint us in a condition of Revolution.’

’Happily it’s not a condition unnatural to us.  The danger would be in not letting it be progressive, and there’s a little danger too at times in our slowness.  We change our blood or we perish.’