oked _most_ respectable--not to say dull.
By no stretch of imagination could Vane imagine him as the leader of a
great cause. He might have been a country lawyer, or a general
practitioner, or any of those eminently worthy things with which
utility rather than brilliance is generally associated. He recalled
what he had read in the papers--paragraphs describing meetings at which
Mr. Ramage had taken a prominent part, and his general recollection of
most of them seemed to be summed up in the one sentence . . . "the
meeting then broke up in disorder, Mr. Ramage escaping with difficulty
through a window at the back." Somehow he could not see this decorous
gentleman opposite escaping through windows under a barrage of bad
eggs. He failed to fill the part completely. As a cashier in a local
bank gravely informing a customer that his account was overdrawn--yes;
but as a fighter, as a man who counted for something in the teeming
world around--why no. . . . Not as far as appearance went, at any
rate. And at that moment the eyes of the two men met for an instant
across the table. . . .

It seemed to Vane almost as if he had received a blow--so sudden was
the check to his mental rambling. For the eyes of the man opposite,
deep set and gleaming, were the eyes of greatness, and they triumphed
so completely over their indifferent setting that Vane marvelled at his
previous obtuseness. Martyrs have had such eyes, and the great
pioneers of the world--men who have deemed everything well lost for a
cause, be that cause right or wrong. And almost as if he were standing
there in the flesh, there came to him a vision of Sir James raving
furiously against this man.

He watched him with a slightly puzzled frown for a moment. This was
the man who was deliberately leading the masses towards discontent and
revolt; this was the man of intellect who was deliberately using his
gift to try to ruin the country. . . . So Sir James had said; so Vane
had always understood. And his frown grew more puzzled.

Suddenly Ramage turned and spoke to him. A faint smile hovered for a
second around his lips, as if he had noticed the frown and interpreted
its cause aright.

"Things seem to be going very well over the water, Captain Vane."

"Very well," said Vane abruptly. "I think we've got those arch swine
beaten at last--without the help of a negotiated peace."

For a moment the deep-set eyes gleamed, and then, once more, a faint
smile hover