three thousand?—without a single fort! Oh, no, Prohibition would mix things up dreadfully."
His audience looked properly impressed, but Alayne suggested that he sit down. He refused, and continued to stand gracefully, holding his glass. "See what Prohibition has done for you! Why, I am told that our Nova Scotian fishermen have given up fishing. It is more profitable to smuggle. You get all you want through them."
"Life is a strange muddle," observed Rosamond.
"It is. And the women's vote has made it still more so," he murmured. "Luckily our women are British in their training, and vote as their men do. But look at the situation in the Province of Quebec! There the women have no vote. 'We are Latins!' their Premier exclaims. 'We adore our women, but we will not give them the vote. It is against all our instincts.' And I must say I admire them for it."
"Yet they haven't Prohibition, have they?" asked Miss Trent, bewildered.
"No, and never had! Their greatest grievances are Orangeism in Ontario, emigration to the States, and, of course, smuggling, which is sometimes a source of Revenue. But the real trouble with the whole Dominion is the Boundary Line—and these Arctic expeditions—and Transatlantic flights." He sat down abruptly.
Very soon his slight confusion passed, and he was himself again. It must be arranged when he was to see Finch. Alayne suggested that they meet in the apartment, go out to dinner together, and then to the theatre. Ernest desired that Finch should not be told of his arrival. It would be a pleasant surprise for the boy to find his uncle awaiting him. "Because, you know, dear Alayne, I'm not going to scold or threaten him. Nothing at all of that sort."
"I should say not," said Alayne, truculently.
But she would not agree to Finch's meeting Ernest without preparation. She telephoned him, asking him to come to see her that evening, and announced the arrival from Jalna. She delivered Ernest's reassuring message.
