It struck Tallente that he was aware of the object of the meeting and
his manner, obviously intended to be ingratiating, had still a touch of
self-conscious truculence.

They went into dinner, a few minutes later, and their host's tact in
including Nora in the party was at once apparent. She talked brightly
of the small happenings of their day-by-day political life and bridged
over the moments of awkwardness before general conversation assumed its
normal swing. Dartrey encouraged Miller to talk and they all listened
while he spoke of the mammoth trades unions of the north, where his hold
upon the people was greatest. He spoke still bitterly of the war, from
the moral effect of which, he argued, the working man had never wholly
recovered. Tallente listened a little grimly.

"The fervour of self-sacrifice and so-called patriotism which some of
the proletariat undoubtedly felt at the outbreak of the war," Miller
argued, "was only an incidental, a purely passing sensation compared to
the idle and greedy inertia which followed it. The war lost," he went
on, "might have acted as a lash upon the torpor of many of these men.
Won, it created a wave of immorality and extravagance from which they
had never recovered. They spent more than they had and they earned more
than they were worth. That is to say, they lived an unnatural life."

"It is fortunate, then," Tallente remarked, "that the new generation is
almost here."

"They, too, carry the taint," Miller insisted. Tallente looked
thoughtfully across towards his host.

"It seems to me that this is a little disheartening," he said. "It is