t go down
amongst them. It has been slumming in Mayfair for you, I know. But have
done with it now. It is these people we are going to fight. Let it be
open war. Let them hear your programme at Glasgow. We don't want another
French Revolution, but it is going to be war against the drones, fierce,
merciless war! You must break with them, Brott, once and for ever. And
the time is now."

Brott held out his hand across the table. No one but this one man could
have read the struggle in his face.

"You are right, Grahame. I thank you. I thank you as much for what you
have left unsaid as for what you have said. I was a fool to think of
compromising. Letheringham is a nerveless leader. We should have gone
pottering on for another seven years. Thank God that you came when you
did. See here!"

He tossed him over a letter. Grahame's cheek paled as he read.

"Already!" he murmured.

Brott nodded.

"Read it!"

Grahame devoured every word. His eyes lit up with excitement.

"My prophecy exactly," he exclaimed, laying it down. "It is as I said.
He cannot form the ministry without you. His letter is abject. He gives
himself away. It is an entreaty. And your answer?"

"Has not yet gone," Brott said. "You shall write it yourself if you
like. I am thankful that you came when you did."

"You were hesitating?" Grahame exclaimed.

"I was."

Grahame looked at him in wonder, and Brott faced him sturdily.

"It seems like treason to you, Grahame!" he said. "So it does to me
now. I want nothing in the future to come between us," he continued
more slowly, "and I should like if I can to expunge the memory of this
interview. And so I am going to tell you the truth." Grahame held out
his hand.

"Don't!" he said. "I can forget without."

Brott shook his head.

"No," he said. "You had better understand everything. The halfpenny
press told the truth. Yet only half the truth. I have been to all
these places, wasted my time, wasted their time, from a purely selfish
reason--to be near the only woman I have ever cared for, the woman,
Grahame!"

"I knew it," Grahame murmured. "I fought against the belief, I thought
that I had stifled it. But I knew it all the time."

"If I have seemed lukewarm sometimes of late," Brott said, "there is the
cause. She is an aristocrat, and my politics are hateful to her. She has
told me so seriously, playfully, angrily. She has let me feel it in a
hundred ways. She has drawn me into discussions and show