I should
say that but for the fact that our Government at the time was wholly one
of compromise, and was leaning largely upon the Labour vote, he would
have been impeached for high treason."
Miller, who had been busy rolling a cigarette, lit it with ostentatious
carelessness.
"And what of all this?" he demanded.
"Nothing," Tallente replied, "except that it seems a strange thing to
find you now associated with a party who threaten me openly with
political extinction unless I choose to join them. I call this
junkerdom, not socialism."
"No man's principles can remain stable in an unstable world," Miller
pronounced. "I still detest force and compulsion of every sort, but I
recognise its necessity in our present civil life far more than I did in
a war which was, after all, a war of politicians."
Nora Miall leaned over from her chair and laid her hand on Tallente's
arm. After Miller's raucous tones, her voice sounded almost like music.
"Mr. Tallente," she said, "I can understand your feeling aggrieved.
You are not a man whom it is easy to threaten, but remember that after
all we must go on our fixed way towards the appointed goal.
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