Of course she was safe.

She always had been.

Britannia Rules the Waves and the James Simpsons were sure that incidentally she ruled everything else.
But as there stole up behind the mature Simpsons the haunting realization that, if England was "drawn in" to a war, it would be the young Simpsons who must gird their loins and go forth to meet Goliath in his armour, with only the sling and stone of untrained youth and valour as their weapon, there were many who began to feel that even inconvenient drilling and discipline might have been good things.
"There is something quite thrilling in going about now," said Feather to Coombe, after coming in from a shopping round, made in her new electric brougham.

"One doesn't know what it is, but it's in the air.

You see it in people's faces.