y accommodating, so polite, so apologetic even.
Nobody ever had a finer contempt for his party than he--not even old
Dizzy, or Salisbury, or Churchill. So he could always say the handsome
thing to one--behind its back--even when he was making burnt-offerings to
its prejudices.

JESSE COLLINGS. And when you left him?

CHAMBERLAIN. When I left him he did the thing beautifully. So genuinely
sorry to lose me; so sure of having me with him again, before long. How
could I have gone out and worked against him after that? But it's what--as
a business politician--I ought to have done.

JESSE COLLINGS. If you had--should we have won, straight away?

CHAMBERLAIN. We should have won the party, and the party-machine too. For
the rest it wouldn't have mattered waiting a year or two. Yes, we should
have won. But here's this, Collings: we should have won then; we shan't
win now. Times are changing: the time for it is over. Something else is
coming along--what, I don't know. My old fox-scent has gone: wind's
against me. The Colonies are growing up too fast. They won't separate, but
they mean to stand on their own feet all the same: in their own way--not
mine. We ought to have got them when they were a bit younger: we could
have done it then. Once it flattered them to be called "Dominions "; now
they are going to be "Sovereign States." And he--he doesn't mind. He is
never for big constructive ideas--only for contrivances: takes things as
they come, makes the best of them--philosophically--and gets round them;
and sometimes does it brilliantly.

JESSE COLLINGS. What will he talk about?

CHAMBERLAIN. Anything that comes into his head: the weather, the garden,
the greenhouses, the theatres. He'll tell me, perhaps, of a book or two
that I ought to read, that he hasn't had time for. He'll say, as you said,
that I'm looking better than he expected. He'll say something handsome
about Austen--quite genuinely meaning it. Then he'll say he's afraid of
tiring me; then he'll go.... Have you noticed how he shakes hands? He
hasn't much of a hand--not a real hand--but he does it, like everything
else, charmingly.

JESSE COLLINGS (_a little crestfallen_). I thought you really liked
him.

CHAMBERLAIN. So I do. Because he has beaten me, is that any reason for
hating him? If it were--after a lifetime of polls and politics, one would
have to be at hate with half the world. No, from his point of view he had
to beat me, and he has done it. What I sti