That a company presenting such a variety of interests should have been brought together in the frescoed dining-room of that particular house is noteworthy.

The thing could happen nowhere save in the England of today.  At first the talk was general, ranging over a number of subjects from that of the personality of certain politicians to the conduct of the war and the disturbing problem raised by the “conscientious objector”; little by little, however, the rest of us became silent, to listen to a debate which had begun between the labour leader and the ship-builder on the “labour question.”  It is not my purpose here to record what they said.  Needless to add that they did not wholly agree, but they were much nearer to agreement than one would have thought possible.  What was interesting was the open-mindedness with which, on both sides, the argument was conducted, and the fact that it could seriously take place then and there.  For the subject of it had long been the supreme problem in the lives of both these men, their feelings concerning it must at times have been tinged with bitterness, yet they spoke with courtesy and restraint, and though each maintained his contentions he was quick to acknowledge a point made by the other.  As one listened one was led to hope that a happier day is perhaps at hand when such things as “complexes” and convictions will disappear.

The types of these two were in striking contrast.  The labour leader was stocky, chestnut-coloured, vital, possessing the bulldog quality of the British self-made man combined with a natural wit, sharpened in the arena, that often startled the company into an appreciative laughter.  The ship-builder, on the other hand, was one of those spare and hard Englishmen whom no amount of business cares will induce to neglect the exercise of his body, the obligation at all times to keep “fit”; square-rigged, as it were, with a lean face and a wide moustache accentuating a square chin.  Occasionally a gleam of humour, a ray of idealism, lighted his practical grey eyes.  Each of these two had managed rather marvellously to triumph over early training by self-education:  the labour leader, who had had his first lessons in life from injustices and hard knocks; and the ship-builder, who had overcome the handicap of the public-school tradition and of Manchester economics.

“Yes, titles and fortunes must go,” remarked our hostess with a smile as she rose from the table and led the way out on the sunny, stone-flagged terrace.  Below us was a wide parterre whose flower-beds, laid out by a celebrated landscape-gardener in the days of the Stuarts, were filled with vegetables.  The day was like our New England Indian summerthough the trees were still heavy with leaves—­and a gossamer-blue veil of haze stained the hills between which the shining river ran.  If the social revolution, or evolution, takes place, one wonders what will become of this long-cherished beauty.