aton. Rather like you, Max. Which of you
will talk the more, I wonder? I shall be dumb."

"It will be I who will talk," Maxendorf asserted. "I, because I have a
mission, things to explain to our friend here, if he will but listen."

"Listen--of course he will listen!" Selingman interrupted. "You
two--what was it the _Oracle_ called you both--the world's deliverers.
Put your heads together and decide how you are going to do it. The
people over here, Max, are rotting in their kennels. Sink-holes they
live in. Live! What a word!"

"If you indeed have something to say to me," Maraton proposed, "let us
each remember who we are. There is no need for preambles. I know you
to be a people's man. We have all watched your rise. We have all
marvelled at it."

"A Socialist statesman in the stiffest-necked country of Europe,"
Selingman muttered. "Marvelled at it, indeed!"

"I am where I am," Maxendorf declared, "because the world is governed by
laws, and in the main they are laws of justice and right. The people of
my country fifty years ago were as deep in the mire as the people of
your country to-day. Their liberation has already dawned. That is why
I stand where I do. Your people, alas! are still dwellers in the
caves. The moment for you has not yet arrived. When I heard that
Maraton had come to England, I changed all my plans. I said to
myself--' I will go to Maraton and I will show him how he may lead his
people to the light.' And then I heard other things."

"Continue," Maraton said simply.

Maxendorf rose to his feet. He came a little nearer to Maraton. He
stood looking down at him with folded arms--a lank, gaunt figure, the
angular lines of his body and limbs accentuated by his black clothes and
black tie.

"It came upon me like a thunderbolt," Maxendorf proceeded. "I heard
unexpectedly that Maraton had entered Parliament, had placed his hand in
the hand of a Minister--not even the leader of the people's Party. You
do not read the Press of my country, perhaps. You did not hear across
the seas the groan which came from the hearts of my children. I said to
myself--'The Maraton whom we knew of exists no longer, yet I will go
and see.'"

Maraton moved in his chair a little uneasily. He felt suddenly as
though he were a prisoner at the bar, and this man his judge.

"You do not understand the circumstances which I found existing on my
arrival here," Maraton explained. "You do not understand the promises
which I have re