can find work to do-better work on that side."

"Against us!" she said. "As if progress wasn't hard enough! As if

it didn't call upon every able man!"

"I don'tthink Liberalism has a monopoly of progress."

She did not answer that. She sat quite still looking in front of

her. "WHY have you gone over?" she asked abruptly as though I had

said nothing.

There came a silence that I was impelled to end. I began a stiff

dissertation from the hearthrug. "Iam going over, because Ithink

I may join in an intellectual renascence on the Conservative side.

Ithink that in the coming struggle there will be a partial and

altogetherconfused and demoralising victory for democracy, that

will stir the classes which now dominate the Conservative party into

an energetic revival. They will set out to win back, and win back.

Even if my estimate of con-temporary forces is wrong and they win,

they will still be forced to reconstruct their outlook. A war

abroad will supply the chastening if home politics fail. The effort

at renascence is bound to come by either alternative. I believe I

can do more inrelation to that effort than in any other connexion

in the world of politics at the present time. That's my case,

Margaret."

She certainly did not grasp what I said. "And so you will throw

aside all the beginnings, all the beliefs and pledges-" Again her

sentence remained incomplete. "Idoubt if even, once you have gone

over, they will welcome you."

"That hardly matters."

I made an effort to resume my speech.

"I came into Parliament, Margaret," I said, "a little prematurely.

Still-I suppose it was only by coming into Parliament that I could

see things as I do now in terms of personality and imaginative

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