These abstract questions are inseparably interwoven with mymemory

of a shining long white table, and our hock bottles and burgundy

bottles, and bottles of Perrier and St. Galmier and the disturbed

central trophy of dessert, and scattered glasses and nut-shells and

cigarette-ends and menu-cards used for memoranda. Isee old Dayton

sitting back and cocking his eye to the ceiling in a way he had

while he threw warmth into the ancient platitudes of Liberalism, and

Minns leaning forward, and a little like a cockatoo with ataste for

confidences, telling us in a hushed voice of hisfaith in the

Destiny of Mankind. Thorns lounges, rolling his round face and

round eyes from speaker to speaker and sounding the visible depths

of misery whenever Neal begins. Gerbault and Gane were given to

conversation in undertones, and Bailey pursued mysterious purposes

in lisping whispers. It was Crupp attracted me most. He had, as

people say, his eye on me from the beginning. He used to speak at

me, and drifted into a custom of coming home with me very regularly

for an after-talk.

He opened his heart to me.

"Neither of us," he said, "are dukes, and neither of us are horny-

handed sons of toil. We want to get hold of the handles, and to do

that, one must go where the power is, and give it just as

constructive a twist as we can. That's MY Toryism."

"Is it Kindling's-or Gerbault's?"

"No. But theirs is soft, and mine's hard. Mine will wear theirs

out. You and I and Bailey are all after the same thing, and why

aren't we working together?"

"Are you a Confederate?" I asked suddenly.

"That's a secret nobody tells," he said.

"What are the Confederates after?"

<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>