True there was Evesham. He had shown an exquisitely open mind about
the whole thing. He had at once grasped the underlying principles,
thrown out some amazingly luminous suggestions. Oh yes, Evesham was a
statesman, right enough. But had even he ever really _believed_ in the
idea of a Provisional Government of England by the Female Foundlings?

To Perkins the whole thing had seemed so simple, so imminent--a thing
that needed only a little general good-will to bring it about. And
now.... Suppose his Bill _had_ passed its Second Reading, suppose it
had become Law, would this poor old England be by way of functioning
decently--after all? Foundlings were sometimes naughty....

What was the matter with the whole human race? He remembered again
those words of Scragson's that had had such a depressing effect on him
at the Cambridge Union--"Look here, you know! It's all a huge nasty
mess, and we're trying to swab it up with a pocket handkerchief."
Well, he'd given up trying to do that....


§2.

During dinner his eyes wandered furtively up and down the endless
ornate table, and he felt he had been, in a sort of way, right in
thinking these people were the handiest instrument to prise open
the national conscience with. The shining red faces of the men, the
shining white necks and arms of the women, the fearless eyes, the
general free-and-easiness and spaciousness, the look of late hours
counteracted by fresh air and exercise and the best things to eat and
drink--what mightn't be made of these people, if they'd only Submit?