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"Married a year come Christmas," whispered old Inskip, "and the babby's five weeks old to-morrow." A serving-woman bustled out of another room, and the lady and child were affectionately driven off to bed under her escort. Sir James came slowly back. "My wife and son, Mr. Wheatman," he said. "You must meet them to-morrow. The young rascal cries out whenever I desecrate him with my touch.
"There's one of mine shaking his fist at me over the battlements of the New Jerusalem." He laughed heartily, and, with Inskip trailing patiently behind us, led me upstairs, and through the gallery into a long corridor, lit by lanterns fixed in sconces on the walls. We stopped opposite a door, and he was about to lead me in when another door farther along the corridor opened and a lady came out.
Inskip brought me a rare dish of venison-pie and various other good things, and laid out the table for me. I left Master Freake's side to eat my supper and listen to their talk. They made various false starts, followed by dead silences. It was clean useless for Sir James to talk about his baby.
I had played for life's highest stake, and thrown amb's ace. It was good-bye to Margaret. The Welshman stuck to his chair, stolid as his native hills. Master Freake, whose back was to the new-comers, made a swift half turn, and then he, too, settled down again as indifferently as if the interruption had only been old Inskip with the bedward candles.
And without a knowledge of what happened during the talks in those historic two days and what preceded them, the world can only puzzle over an almost incomprehensible British foreign policy. Present at this week-end gathering, besides the Astors and the Prime Minister and his wife, were the following: Sir Thomas Inskip, Minister for Defense.
I should never need to try again. There are some lines in the Master that life alone can translate. Sunt lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. After a turn or two in silence, Sir James broke off his pacing and came to me. "Sir," he said, "you will know enough to excuse my inattention to a guest. I must make it up if I can. Give me the lantern and wait for us here, Inskip.
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