Every one was entertaining.

In the Park on the other side were the usual crowd of earnest, hard-faced men and women, gathered in little groups around the orator of the moment.
Hebblethwaite felt a queer premonition that evening.

A man of sanguine temperament, thoroughly contented with himself and his position, he seemed almost for the first time in his life, to have doubts, to look into the future, to feel the rumblings of an earthquake, the great dramatic cry of a nation in the throes of suffering.

Had they been wise, all these years, to have legislated as though the old dangers by land and sea had passed ?--to have striven to make the people fat and prosperous, to have turned a deaf ear to every note of warning?
Supposing the other thing were true! Supposing Norgate and Spencer Wyatt had found the truth! What would history have to say then of this Government of which he was so proud?
Would it be possible that they had brought the country to a great prosperity by destroying the very bulwarks of its security?
The car drew up with a jerk, and Hebblethwaite came back to earth.
Nevertheless, he promised himself, as he hastened across the pavement, that on the morrow he would pay a long-delayed visit to the War Office..