row, I think. I recall
you because you were the only person in the audience who looked bored."

"I was." Frankness called for frankness. "I am not keen about speeches."

"Not even when Benham speaks?" The voice was gay, but through it all
there rang the unmistakable tone of authority, of conscious power. There
was one person, Stephen inferred, who had never from the beginning
disparaged or ridiculed Gideon Vetch, and that person was Gideon Vetch
himself. John Benham had once said that the man was a mere posturer--but
John Benham was wrong.

"Oh, well, you see, Benham is different," replied the young man as
delicately as he could. "He is apt to say only what I think, you know."

So far there had been no breach of good taste in the Governor's manner,
no warning reminder of an origin that was certainly obscure and
presumably low, no stale, dust-laden odours of the circus ring. He had
looked and spoken as any man of Stephen's acquaintance might have done,
facetiously, it is true, but without ostentation or vulgarity. When the
break came, therefore, it was the more shocking to the younger man
because he had been so imperfectly prepared for it.

"And because he is different, of course you think he'd make a better
Governor than I shall," said Gideon Vetch abruptly. "That is the way
with you fellows who have ossified in the old political parties. You
never see a change in time to make ready for it. You wait until it
knocks you in the head, and then you wake up and grumble. Now, I've been
on the way for the last thirty years or so, but you never once so much
as got wind of me. You think I've just happened because of too much
electricity in the air, like a thunderbolt or something; but you haven't
even looked back to find out whether you are right or wrong. Talk about
public spirit! Why, there isn't an ounce of live public spirit left
among you, in spite of all the moonshine your man Benham talks about the
healing virtues of tradition and the sacred taboo of your political
Pharisees. There wasn't one of you that didn't hate like the devil to
see me Governor of Virginia--and yet how many of you took the trouble to
find out what I am made of, or to understand what I mean? Did you even
take the trouble to go to the polls and vote against me?"

Though Stephen flushed scarlet, he held his ground bravely. It was true
that he had not voted--he hated the whole sordid business of
politics--but then, who had ever suspected for a minut