close to one whose hair
smelt of cantharides; and, looking round the room, he frowned. With
the exception of his cousin, he seemed the only person there of English
blood. Americans, Mesopotamians, Irish, Italians, Germans, Scotch, and
Russians. He was not contemptuous of them for being foreigners; it was
simply that God and the climate had made him different by a skin or so.

But at this point his conclusions were denied (as will sometimes happen)
by his introduction to an Englishman--a Major Somebody, who, with smooth
hair and blond moustache, neat eyes and neater clothes, seemed a little
anxious at his own presence there. Shelton took a liking to him, partly
from a fellow-feeling, and partly because of the gentle smile with which
he was looking at his wife. Almost before he had said "How do you do?"
he was plunged into a discussion on imperialism.

"Admitting all that," said Shelton, "what I hate is the humbug with
which we pride ourselves on benefiting the whole world by our so-called
civilising methods."

The soldier turned his reasonable eyes.

"But is it humbug?"

Shelton saw his argument in peril. If we really thought it, was it
humbug? He replied, however:

"Why should we, a small portion of the world's population, assume that
our standards are the proper ones for every kind of race? If it 's not
humbug, it 's sheer stupidity."

The soldier, without taking his hands out of his pockets, but by a
forward movement of his face showing that he was both sincere and just,
re-replied:

"Well, it must be a good sort of stupidity; it makes us the nation that
we are."

Shelton felt dazed. The conversation buzzed around him; he heard
the smiling prophet saying, "Altruism, altruism," and in his voice a
something seemed to murmur, "Oh, I do so hope I make a good impression!"

He looked at the soldier's clear-cut head with its well-opened eyes, the
tiny crow's-feet at their corners, the conventional moustache; he envied
the certainty of the convictions lying under that well-parted hair.

"I would rather we were men first and then Englishmen," he muttered;
"I think it's all a sort of national illusion, and I can't stand
illusions."

"If you come to that," said the soldier, "the world lives by illusions.
I mean, if you look at history, you'll see that the creation of
illusions has always been her business, don't you know."

This Shelton was unable to deny.

"So," continued the soldier (who was evidently a highl