"To tell the truth," I said, with a sudden impulse for candour, "it
isn't the political aspect of the matter, but the personal. I spoke
because it was just possible that I might be of service to
you--personally--and because I would like you ... to make a good fight
for it." I had borrowed her own words.

He looked up at me and smiled. "Thank you," he said. "I believe you
think it's a losing game," he added, with a touch of gray humour that
was like a genial hour of sunlight on a wintry day. I did not answer. A
little way down the road Miss Churchill's carriage whirled into sight,
sparkling in the sunlight, and sending up an attendant cloud of dust
that melted like smoke through the dog-roses of the leeward hedge.

"So you don't think much of me as a politician," Churchill suddenly
deduced smilingly. "You had better not tell that to my aunt."

I went up to town with Churchill that evening. There was nothing waiting
for me there, but I did not want to think. I wanted to be among men,
among crowds of men, to be dazed, to be stupefied, to hear nothing for
the din of life, to be blinded by the blaze of lights.

There were plenty of people in Churchill's carriage; a military member
and a local member happened to be in my immediate neighbourhood. Their
minds were full of the financial scandals, and they dinned their
alternating opinions into me. I assured them that I knew nothing about
the matter, and they grew more solicitous for my enlightenment.

"It all comes from having too many eggs in one basket," the local member
summed up. "The old-fashioned small enterprises had their
disadvantages, but--mind you--these gigantic trusts.... Isn't that so,
General?"

"Oh, I quite agree with you," the general barked; "at the same time...."
Their voices sounded on, intermingling, indistinguishable, soothing
even. I seemed to be listening to the hum of a threshing-machine--a
passage of sound booming on one note, a passage, a half-tone higher, and
so on, and so on. Visible things grew hazy, fused into one another.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

We reached London somewhat late in the evening--in the twilight of a
summer day. There was the hurry and bustle of arrival, a hurry and
bustle that changed the tenor of my thoughts and broke their train. As I
stood reflecting before the door of the carriage, I felt a friendly
pressure of a hand on my shoulder.

"You'll see to that," Churchill's voice said in my ear. "You'll set the
copyists to