fference?" he said.

"Oh, we're all dupes, we're all dupes. Look, Lully, old man, fill up the
Americans' glasses."

"Thanks."

"And I used to believe in liberty," said Martin. He raised his tumbler
and looked at the candle through the pale yellow champagne. On the wall
behind him, his arm and hand and the tumbler were shadowed huge in dusky
lavender blue. He noticed that his was the only tumbler.

"I am honoured," he said; "mine is the only glass."

"And that's looted," said Merrier.

"It's funny ..." Martin suddenly felt himself filled with a desire to
talk. "All my life I've struggled for my own liberty in my small way.
Now I hardly know if the thing exists."

"Exists? Of course it does, or people wouldn't hate it so," cried Lully.

"I used to think," went on Martin, "that it was my family I must escape
from to be free; I mean all the conventional ties, the worship of
success and the respectabilities that is drummed into you when you're
young."

"I suppose everyone has thought that...."

"How stupid we were before the war, how we prated of small revolts, how
we sniggered over little jokes at religion and government. And all the
while, in the infinite greed, in the infinite stupidity of men, this was
being prepared." Andre Dubois was speaking, puffing nervously at a
cigarette between phrases, now and then pulling at his beard with a
long, sinewy hand.

"What terrifies me rather is their power to enslave our minds," Martin
went on, his voice growing louder and surer as his idea carried him
along. "I shall never forget the flags, the menacing, exultant flags
along all the streets before we went to war, the gradual unbaring of
teeth, gradual lulling to sleep of people's humanity and sense by the
phrases, the phrases.... America, as you know, is ruled by the press.
And the press is ruled by whom? Who shall ever know what dark forces
bought and bought until we should be ready to go blinded and gagged to
war?... People seem to so love to be fooled. Intellect used to mean
freedom, a light struggling against darkness. Now the darkness is using
the light for its own purposes.... We are slaves of bought intellect,
willing slaves."

"But, Howe, the minute you see that and laugh at it, you're not a slave.
Laugh and be individually as decent as you can, and don't worry your
head about the rest of the world; and have a good time in spite of the
God-damned scoundrels," broke out Randolph in English. "No use worrying
y