Page:The Prime Minister by Hall Caine.djvu/29

Rh Enter ''Elderly man. There are general salutations.''

 Sorry to be late. Excuse me, Robert. [Nodding round table.] Carfax! Dundas! Hallam! How long do you think it has taken me to reach here in a taxi from my house in Kensington? An hour and a half! Traffic held up everywhere! People walking in procession! Mass meetings in Trafalgar Square! Such unanimity of popular feeling! Have never seen the like of it!

 Ah!

 We've certainly got the country behind us, haven't we?

 Yes, it's always like that to begin with. Every great war in the history of the world has been heralded by just such outbursts of popular enthusiasm. But when the bill comes in, and the price has to be paid. ..

 True!

 Terribly true! The people of yesterday thought they were seeing the last of war. "A war to end war," they called it. And yet here we are, so soon afterwards, as the harvest of hate and revenge perhaps. . . ugh!