a revolution thinks
himself able to govern the State. That is not so with us. A man may
have the genius for seeing the truth, the genius even for engraving the
laws which should govern the world upon tablets of stone, without having
the capacity for government."

"But do you mean to say," Tallente asked, "that when Horlock goes down,
as go down he must within the next few months, you are not prepared to
take his place?"

"I should never accept the task of forming a government," Dartrey said
quietly, "unless I am absolutely driven to do so. I have shown the
truth to the world. I have shown to the people whom I love their
destiny, but I have not the gifts to lead them. I am asking you,
Tallente, to join us, to enter Parliament as one of our party and to
lead for us in the House of Commons."

"Yours is the offer of a prince," Tallente replied, after a brief,
nervous pause. "If I hesitate, you must remember all that it means for
me."

Dartrey smiled.

"Now, my friend," he said, "look me in the face and answer me this
question. You know little of us Democrats as a party. You see nothing
but a hotchpotch of strange people, struggling and striving to attain
definite form. Naturally you are full of prejudices. Yet consider your
own political position. I am not here to make capital out of a man's
disappointment in his friends, but has your great patron used you well?
Horlock offers you a grudging and belated place in his Cabinet. What
did he say to you when you came hack from Hellesfield?" Tallente was
silent. There was, in fact, no answer which he could make. "I do not
wish to dwell on that," Dartrey went on. "Ingratitude is the natural
sequence of the distorted political ideals which we are out to destroy.
You should be in the frame of mind, Tallente, to see things clearly.
You must realise the rotten condition of the political party to which
Horlock belongs--the Coalitionists, the Whip, or whatever they like to
call themselves. The government of this country since the war has been
a farce and a mockery. We are dropping behind in the world's race.
Labour fattens with sops, develops a spirit of greed and production
languishes. You know why. Labour would toil for its country, Labour
can feel patriotism with the best, but Labour hates to toil under the
earth, upon the earth, and in the factories of the world for the sake of
the profiteer. This is the national spirit, that jealousy, that
slackness, which the last ten years