now.

JESSE COLLINGS. We mean to run it, Chamberlain! You'll see!

CHAMBERLAIN. I know you do, Collings. You are loyalty itself.

JESSE COLLINGS. There are others too. I'm not the only one.

CHAMBERLAIN. You are the best of them.

JESSE COLLINGS. No, I won't admit that.

CHAMBERLAIN. Name?

JESSE COLLINGS. The best? Probably some one we don't yet even know. The
best are still to come. Time's with us.

CHAMBERLAIN. Is it?

JESSE COLLINGS. Don't you think so yourself?

CHAMBERLAIN. Not now. I did once.

JESSE COLLINGS. You always said so.

CHAMBERLAIN. I said it as long as I believed it: till the stars in their
courses turned against me. That broke me, Collings. If I could have gone
on having faith in myself, I shouldn't be--as I am now.

JESSE COLLINGS. But what--what made you lose it?

CHAMBERLAIN. Can't you guess?

(_Collings shakes his head, remains valiantly incredulous; and there is
a pause_.)

I saw somebody else--whose cards weren't so good--playing with a better
hand. It was the hand beat me. My head's all right still, though it
sleeps. But I've lost my hand. Look at it! (_Again the gesture
illustrative of defeat_.) Threw it away. You know who I mean?

JESSE COLLINGS (_cautiously, _rather reluctantly_). I suppose I do.

CHAMBERLAIN (_watching to see the effect of his news_).
He's coming to-day: to see me.

COLLINGS (_surprised_). Coming here?

CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, it's all been nicely arranged--just a call in passing.
To-morrow's papers will describe it as "a pathetic meeting." Well, when a
man has to meet his executioner on friendly terms, I suppose it is
"pathetic" for one of them.

(_All this is very disconcerting to poor Collings. He helps himself to a
half-sentence, and stops._)

JESSE COLLINGS. Did he himself----?

CHAMBERLAIN. Propose it? Oh, yes--in the most charming way possible. Isn't
it amazing how a man with charm can do things that nobody else dare? I
never managed to charm anybody.

JESSE COLLINGS. You made friends--and kept them.

CHAMBERLAIN. So does he. He has been successful all round: art, politics,
letters, society--he has friends in all. I've only been successful in
business.

JESSE COLLINGS. My dear friend, aren't you forgetting yourself? You came
_out_ of business.

CHAMBERLAIN. No, I only changed to business on a larger scale--carried it
on under a bigger name. That's how I found myself. I had to make things
into a business in order to make a success of the