Yes, that
speech was a great success, and you remained our leader. But your halving
of that sheet was the beginning of--my defeat, your victory.

DIST. V. I don't recognise either. At this moment we are both defeated, in
a sense: out of office, that is to say.

CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, but you will come back. I shan't.

DIST. V. But--in all its essentials--what you stand for will.

CHAMBERLAIN. As a hang-fire, perhaps, while parties temporise and readjust
themselves to a new balance. But never the same thing again. The time for
it has gone. I missed it.

DIST. V. You mustn't be depressed, Chamberlain. Great policies, new
orientations, need careful nursing--testing too. Conditions are changing
very rapidly.

CHAMBERLAIN. Mine are getting worse. I have two nurses now--night and day:
and I obey orders.

DIST. V. You do well to remind me. You shouldn't have let me tire you.

(_And so saying he rises_.)

CHAMBERLAIN. You don't. You used to, now and then, when we didn't agree.
You had the deliberate mind, your own fixed rate of progression: one
couldn't hurry you. And your semitones, and semicircles, and semi-quavers
used sometimes to worry me, I own. They don't now: having become a
monotone myself, I acquiesce. _I'm_ the slow one, now: you've set me
my pace.... Here I sit, stock still.

DIST. V. (_lightly diverting the conversation from its impending
embarrassment_). With your old associates still round you, I see!

(_And he touches a trail of blossom admiringly, as he continues_:)

They, at least, in their reflected glory, look flourishing; for they, too,
have had a share in your career, have they not?

CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, they helped me to get into _Punch_, I suppose, if
not into Parliament. Yet, I never thought of it, till it happened--'twas a
mere accident. Would you like to take one with you?

DIST. V. I don't usually so efface myself, but I will with pleasure. This
one is quite exquisite. May I? Thanks (_and the glory of it goes to his
buttonhole_). I notice, too, that it has a scent.

CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, that is a new kind, hard to rear. There are very few of
it in England yet, and nowhere growing so well as they do here.

DIST. V. That is so like you, Chamberlain--you are the born expert;
everything you touch--it's in your blood. Whatever you have done, you have
done successfully.

CHAMBERLAIN. So I have your word for it. I was saying to Collins this
morning that as a type of the really successful man you ha