“I trust that the next election,” Mannering said, “may supply you with it.  Will you walk round to the stables with me?  I must order a cart for you.”

“I shall be glad to,” Borrowdean answered.

They walked side by side through the chestnut grove.  Borrowdean laid his hand upon his friend’s arm.

“Mannering,” he said, slowly, “am I to take it that you have spoken your last word?  I am to write my mission down a failure?”

“A failure without doubt, so far as regards its immediate object,” Mannering assented.  “For the rest, it has been very pleasant to see you again, and I only wish that you could spare us a few more days.”

Borrowdean shook his head.

“We are better apart just now, Mannering,” he said, “for I tell you frankly that I do not understand your present attitude towards life—­your entire absence of all sense of moral responsibility.  Are you indeed willing to be written down in history as a philanderer in great things, to loiter in your flower gardens, whilst other men fight the battle of life for you and your fellows?  Persist in your refusal to help us, if you will, Mannering, but before I go you shall at least hear the truth.”

Mannering smiled.

“Be precise, my dear friend.  I shall hear your view of the truth!”

“I do not accept the correction,” Borrowdean answered, quickly.  “There are times when a man can make no mistake, and this is one of them.  You shall hear the truth from me this afternoon, and when your days here have been spun out to their limit—­your days of sybaritic idleness—­you shall hear it again, only it will be too late.  You are fighting against Nature, Mannering.  You were born to rule, to be master over men.  You have that nameless gift of genius—­power—­the gift of swaying the minds and hearts of your fellow men.  Once you accepted your destiny.  Your feet were firmly planted upon the great ladder.  You could have climbed—­where you would.”

A curious quietness seemed to have crept over Mannering.  When he answered, his voice seemed to rise scarcely above a whisper.

“My friend,” he said, “it was not worth while!”

Borrowdean was almost angry.

“Not worth while,” he repeated, contemptuously.  “Is it worth while, then, to play golf, to linger in your flower gardens, to become a dilettante student, to dream away your days in the idleness of a purely enervating culture?  What is it that I heard you yourself say once—­that life apart from one’s fellows must always lack robustness.  You have the instincts of the creator, Mannering.  You cannot stifle them.  Some day the cry of the world to its own children will find its echo in your heart, and it may be too late.  For sooner or later, my friend, the place of all men on earth is filled.”

For a moment that somewhat cynical restraint which seemed to divest of enthusiasm Borrowdean’s most earnest words, and which militated somewhat against his reputation as a public speaker, seemed to have fallen from him.  Mannering, recognizing it, answered him gravely enough, though with no less decision.