They reminded me of nothing more
than the ragged class of scholars around a teacher in a mediaeval
university. Some had vague dreams of eventually presenting themselves
for examinations, the Science and Art Department, the College of
Preceptors, the Matriculation of the University of London. Others
longed for education for its own sake, or rather as a means of raising
themselves in the social scale. Others, bitten by the crude Socialism of
their class, had been persuaded to learn something of past movements
of mankind so as to obtain some basis for their opinions. All were
in deadly earnest. The magnetic attraction between teacher and taught
established itself. After one or two lectures, I looked forward to the
next with excited interest.

Other things Campion off-handedly put into my charge. I went on tours of
inspection round the houses of his competing housewives. I acted as his
deputy at the police court when ladies and gentlemen with a good record
at Barbara's got into trouble with the constabulary. I investigated
cases for the charity of the institution. In quite a short time
I realised with a gasp that I had become part of the machinery of
Barbara's Building, and was remorselessly and helplessly whirled hither
and thither with the rest of the force of the driving wheel which was
Rex Campion.

The amazing, the astounding, the utterly incredible thing about the
whole matter was that I not only liked it, but plunged into it heart and
soul as I had never plunged into work before. I discovered sympathies
that had hitherto lain undreamed of within me. In my electioneering days
I had, it is true, foregathered with the sons of toil. I had shaken the
horny hands of men and the soap-suddy hands of women. I had flattered
them and cajoled them and shown myself mighty affable, as a sensible and
aspiring Parliamentary candidate should do; but the way to their hearts
I had never found, I had never dreamed of seeking. And now it seemed as
if the great gift had been bestowed on me--and I examined it with a new
and almost tremulous delight.

Also, for the first time in all my life, I had taken pain to be the
companion of my soul. All my efforts to find Lola were fruitless. I
became acquainted with the heartache, the longing for the unattainable,
the agony of spirit. The only anodyne was a forgetfulness of self, the
only compensation a glimmer of a hope and the shadow of a smile in the
grey and leaden lives around me.

On