DIST. V. That, in itself, is an ageing experience.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes? ...  I wonder.

DIST. V. Oh, but surely!

CHAMBERLAIN. I wasn’t sure; but I take your word for it.

DIST. V. In politics, somehow, the deaths seem always to exceed the births:  those who go have become more intimate:  one has got to know them.  Yes, the departures do certainly overshadow the arrivals.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yet sometimes they must have come to you as a relief.

DIST. V. My dear Chamberlain, don’t say that!  It isn’t true.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Oh!  I wasn’t thinking of myself just then.

DIST. V. You were thinking, then, of somebody?

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes, I was.  I was thinking of George Wyndham.  What a beautiful fellow he was! so clever, so handsome, so charming:  a man cut out for success, by the very look of him.  And then, all at once, down and out:  the old pack had got him!  How they hunted him!  “Devolution!” Wouldn’t they be glad to get that now?

DIST. V. At the time it was impossible.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes, you accepted that, I know. ...  It broke his heart. ... 
Did you go and see him—­when he was dying?

DIST. V. I used to go and see him when I could—­yes, frequently; we had been great friends.  Not immediately—­a month or two before, was the last time, I think.

CHAMBERLAIN.  And so with him, too, you could say that you remained friends to the last!  You have had a wonderful career:  friends, enemies, they all loved you.  Gladstone (who hadn’t as a rule much love for his political opponents) made an exception in your case.

DIST. V. Yes, I owed a great deal to his generous friendship.  It gave me confidence.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Harcourt, too, always spoke of you with affection.

DIST. V. Oh, yes; we had a brotherly feeling about Rosebery, you know.

CHAMBERLAIN (ignoring his diversion).  Randolph hadn’t though.  He was bitter.

DIST. V. Randolph was a performer who just once exceeded his promise, and then could never get back to it.  That was his tragedy.  Strange how, when he lost his following, his brilliancy all went with it.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Yes, it was strange, in one so independent of others.  He had a great faculty, at one time, for not caring, for being (or seeming) ruthless.  It’s a gift that a politician must envy.  It hasn’t been my way to lose my heart in politics:  it’s not safe.  But—­you charmed me.

(There is an implication here that the quiet tone has not obscured.  And so the direct question comes:)

DIST. V. Chamberlain, I must ask.  What is there between us?

CHAMBERLAIN.  Nothing—­nothing now at all—­or very little.

DIST. V. No, no; you are too sincere to pretend to misunderstand me like that.

CHAMBERLAIN.  In politics can one afford to be quite—­sincere?  Openly, I mean?