ask Mrs. Bunting Harblow about her little boy's French.

For a time talk frothed over Britten's head, but the natural
mischief in Mrs. Millingham had been stirred, and she was presently
echoing his demand in lisping, quasi-confidential undertones. "What
ARE we Liberals doing?" Then Esmeer fell in with the
revolutionaries.

To begin with, I was a little shocked by this clamour for
fundamentals--and a little disconcerted. I had the experience that
I suppose comes to every one at times of discovering oneself
together with two different sets of people with whom one has
maintained two different sets of attitudes. It had always been, I
perceived, an instinctive suppression in our circle that we
shouldn't be more than vague about our political ideals. It had
almost become part of my morality to respect this convention. It
was understood we were all working hard, and keeping ourselves fit,
tremendously fit, under Altiora's inspiration, Pro Bono Publico.
Bunting Harblow had his under-secretaryship, and Lewis was on the
verge of the Cabinet, and these things we considered to be in the
nature of confirmations. . . . It added to the discomfort of the
situation that these plunging enquiries were being made in the
presence of our wives.

The rebel section of our party forced the talk.

Edward Crampton was presently declaring--I forget in what relation:
"The country is with us."

My long-controlled hatred of the Cramptons' stereotyped phrases