“What you want is for Hilary to come back and marry the gel and start raising a crop of little anachronisms,” accused Calthorpe, measuring off with his hand several steps a few feet from the ground absurdly. “Let the boy alone. Would to God we had more like him! Their fathers were all killed off in the War, and the young ones were shoved into shoes too big for them too soon. But Hilary knows what he’s about. You can’t tie his sort by the leg, and we need ’em where they are. Let the girls wait, it’s worth it!”

“Imperialist!” remarked Totleigh in affectionate reproof.

“I can think of worse names,” said Calthorpe cheerfully, “and better men to call by it!”

“What did Gladstone say in ’84?” inquired George ironically.

“If you live long enough,” Calthorpe told him with studied kindness, “you’ll be able to see, as we do, that England as an institution had been in almost continuous danger of collapse or extinction ever since the Wars of the Roses—and that its anachronisms, if we agree to call them that, are an important part of its survival.”

“I suppose so,” George agreed heavily. “I suppose you’re all perfectly right. I suppose one should give thanks fasting even for death and taxes!”

“Oh, taxes!” murmured Totleigh on the hearthrug. “You’ve got a tenant for Nuns Farthing, what are you grousing about? I’ve got four houses on my hands and can’t let one of ’em!”

“You’ve let Nuns Farthing, George?” exclaimed Calthorpe in surprise.

“Yes, and that’s a piece of luck if you like! Wish he’d buy instead of letting. Rum old blighter out of the British Museum. Writes about prehistoric barrows and old British thingummies. Wanted to go and live near Dolebury Camp. Got a couple of unfortunate female belongings, sister and a kid. Must be nice for them!”

“I used to go down there quite a lot before the War,” mused Calthorpe. “You and Hilary and Alice were children. Used to have tea under a big tree on the lawn—” He pulled himself out of reverie with a long sigh. “Ah, well, something like those days will come again, please God! Don’t you sell the place, George. You hang on to it for your old age!”

“Yes, and pay taxes on it meanwhile!” growled George. “But try and get mother to live there! Or Alice either, for that matter!” He rose, with an ill-smothered yawn. “Hilary can have it,” he said, “for his old age! Good-night, sir.”

They waited in noncommittal silence till he was quite gone. Then they looked at each other, and old Lord Totleigh’s quizzical brows went still higher.

“He’s right about Alice, anyway,” he admitted. “She doesn’t like living in the country.”

“How does she feel about living in Waziristan?” queried Calthorpe drily. “Or is that all off?”