'Possibly we shall be swallowed, or appear to be for a while,' Howden said slowly. 'It's also possible that after a war it might prove the other way around.' He paused, his long face brooding, then went on. 'Wars have a way of changing things, you know, Milly; of exhausting nations and reducing empires, and sometimes those who think they've won a war have really lost. Rome discovered that; so did a lot of others in their time: the Philistines, Greece, Spain, France, Britain. The same thing could happen to Russia or the United States; perhaps to both in the end, leaving Canada strongest.' He stopped, then added: 'A mistake people make sometimes is to assume that the great changes of history always occur in other lifetimes than their own.'

There was another thought too, unexpressed, in Howden's mind. A Canadian Prime Minister might easily have more influence in a joint relationship than under total independence. He could become an intermediary, with authority and power which could be fostered and enlarged. And in the end – if Howden himself were the one to wield it – the authority could be used for his own country's good. The important thing, the key to power, would be never to let the final thread of Canadian independence go.

'I realize it's important moving the missile bases north,' Milly said, 'and I know what you said about saving the food-producing land from fallout. But we're really heading directly into war; that's what it means, doesn't it?'

Should he confide-his own conviction about war's inevitability and the need to prepare for it in terms of survival? Howden decided not. It was an issue on which he would have to hedge publicly and he might as well practise now.

'We're choosing sides, Milly,' he said carefully, 'and we're doing it while the choice can still mean something. In a way, believing what we believe, it's the only choice we could ever make. But there's a temptation to put it off; to avoid a decision; to sit on our hands hoping unpalatable truths will go away.' He shook his head. 'But not any more.'

Tentatively she asked, 'Won't it be hard – convincing people?'

Fleetingly the Prime Minister smiled. 'I expect so. It may even make things somewhat hectic around this place.'

'In that case,' Milly said, 'I shall try to reduce them to order.' With the words, she felt a surge of affection and admiration for this man whom, over the years, she had seen achieve so much and now proposed to shoulder so much more. It was not the old, urgent feeling she had once experienced, but, in a deeper way, she wanted to protect and shield him. Satisfyingly, she had a sense of being needed.

James Howden said quietly, 'You've always reduced things to order, Milly. It's meant a great deal to me.' He put down the coffee cup – a signal the time-out period was over.

Forty-five minutes and three appointments later Milly ushered in the Hon Harvey Warrender.

'Sit down, please.' Howden's voice was cool.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration eased his tall, bulging figure into the seat facing the desk. He shifted uncomfortably.

'Look, Jim,' he said with an attempt at heartiness, 'if you've called me in to tell me I made a fool of myself the other night, let me say it first. I did, and I'm damn sorry.'

'Unfortunately,' Howden said acidly, 'it's somewhat late to be sorry. And aside from that, if you choose to behave like the -town drunk, a Governor General's reception is scarcely the place to begin. I assume you're aware that the whole story was around Ottawa next day.' He noted with disapproval that the suit the other man wore was in need of pressing.

Warrender avoided the Prime Minister's glowering eyes above the beaklike nose. He waved a hand self-deprecatingly. 'I know, I know.'

'I'd be entirely justified in demanding your resignation.'

'I hope you won't do that. Prime Minister. I sincerely hope you won't.' Harvey Warrender had leaned forward, the movement revealed beads of sweat on the balding surface of his head. Was there an implied threat in the phrasing and tone, Howden wondered? It was hard to be sure. 'If I may add a thought,' Warrender said softly, smiling – he had regained some of his usual confidence – 'it is graviora quaedam sunt remedia periculis, or freely translated from Virgil, "Some remedies are worse than the dangers."'

'There is also a line some place about the braying of an ass.' Howden snapped back angrily; the other man's classical quotations invariably annoyed him. Now the Prime Minister continued tight-lipped, 'I was about to say that I had decided to take no action beyond a warning. I suggest you don't provoke me into changing my mind.'

Warrender flushed, then shrugged. He murmured softly, 'The rest is silence.'

'The reason, principally, for calling you in is to talk about this latest immigration case in Vancouver. It appears to be the same kind of troublesome situation I insisted we avoid.'

'Aha!' Harvey Warrender's eyes gleamed with aroused interest. 'I've had a full report on that. Prime Minister, and I can tell you all about it.'

'I don't want to be told,' James Howden said impatiently. 'It's your job to run your own department and in any event I've more important things.' His eyes strayed to the open folders on inter-continental defence; he was anxious to get back to them. 'What I want is for the case to be settled out of the newspapers.'

Warrender's eyebrows went up. 'Aren't you being contradictory? In one breath you tell me to run my own department, then in the next to settle a case…'

Howden cut in angrily, 'I'm telling you to follow government policy – my policy: which is to avoid contentious immigration cases, particularly at this time, with an election next year and' – he hesitated – 'other things coming up. We went into all that the other night.' Then bitingly: 'Or perhaps you don't remember.'

'I wasn't all that drunk!' Now the anger was Harvey War-render's. 'I told you then what I thought of our so-called immigration policy, and it still goes. Either we get ourselves some new, honest immigration laws which admit what we're doing, and what every government before us…'

'Admit what?'

James Howden had risen and was standing behind the desk. Looking up at him Harvey Warrender said softly, intensely, 'Admit we have a policy of discrimination; and why not – it's our own country, isn't it? Admit we have a colour bar and race quotas, and we ban Negroes and Orientals, and that's the way it's always been, and why should we change it? Admit we want Anglo-Saxons and we need a pool of unemployed. Let's admit there's a strict quota for Italians and all the rest, and we keep an eye on the Roman Catholic percentage. Let's quit being fakers. Let's write an honest Immigration Act that spells things out the way they are. Let's quit having one face at the United Nations, hobnobbing with the coloureds, and another face at home…'

'Are you insane?' Incredulously, half-whispering, James Howden mouthed the question. His eyes were on Warrender. Of course, he thought, he had been given a clue: what had been said at the Government House reception… but he had assumed the effect of liquor… Then he remembered Margaret's words: I've sometimes thought that Harvey is just a little mad.

Harvey Warrender breathed heavily; his nostrils quivered. *No,' he answered, 'I'm not insane; just tired of damned hypocrisy.'

'Honesty is fine,' Howden said. His anger had dissipated now. 'But that kind is political suicide.'

'How do we know when nobody's tried it? How do we know people wouldn't like to be told what they already know?'

Quietly James Howden asked, 'What's your alternative?'

'You mean if we don't write a new Immigration Act?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'll enforce the one we have right down the line,' Harvey Warrender said firmly. 'I'll enforce it without exception or camouflage or back-door devices to keep unpleasant things out of the press. Maybe that'll show it up for what it is.'