"Let us hope for a better fate," said the doctor. "Our opportunity may
come if the Master Power is ever involved in an unsuccessful naval war
with some other nation, or perhaps in some time of European crisis, when
everything hung in the balance, our latent hostility might have to be
squared by a concession of independence. That is what we have to hope
for and watch for. On the other hand, the conquerors have to count on
time and tact to weaken and finally obliterate the old feelings of
nationality; the middle-aged of to-day will grow old and acquiescent in
the changed state of things; the young generations will grow up never
having known anything different. It's a far cry to Delhi, as the old
Indian proverb says, and the strange half-European, half-Asiatic Court
out there will seem more and more a thing exotic and unreal. 'The King
across the water' was a rallying-cry once upon a time in our history, but
a king on the further side of the Indian Ocean is a shadowy competitor
for one who alternates between Potsdam and Windsor."

"I want you to tell me everything," said Yeovil, after another pause;
"tell me, Holham, how far has this obliterating process of 'time and
tact' gone? It seems to be pretty fairly started already. I bought a
newspaper as soon as I landed, and I read it in the train coming up. I
read things that puzzled and disgusted me. There were announcements of
concerts and plays and first-nights and private views; there were even
small dances. There were advertisements of house-boats and week-end
cottages and string bands for garden parties. It struck me that it was
rather like merrymaking with a dead body lying in the house."

"Yeovil," said the doctor, "you must bear in mind two things. First, the
necessity for the life of the country going on as if nothing had
happened. It is true that many thousands of our working men and women
have emigrated and thousands of our upper and middle class too; they were