Selingman shook his head portentously.

“Politics,” he declared, “ah! in the abstract they are wonderful, but in the concrete they do not interest me.  Maxendorf has come here, doubtless, with great schemes in his mind.”

“Schemes of friendship or of enmity?” Mr. Foley asked swiftly.

Selingman’s shoulders were hunched.

“Who can tell?  Who can tell the thoughts which his brain has conceived?  Maxendorf is a silent man.  He is the first people’s champion who has ever held high office in his country.  You see, he has the gifts which no one can deny.  He moves forward to whatever place he would occupy, and he takes it.  He is in politics as I in literature.”

The man’s magnificent egotism passed unnoticed.  Curiously enough, the truth of it was so apparent that its expression seemed natural.

“I must confess,” Mr. Foley said quietly, “to you two alone, that I had rather he had come at some other time.  Selingman, you are indeed one of the happiest of the earth.  You have no responsibilities save the responsibilities you owe to your genius.  The only call to which you need listen is the call to give to the world the thoughts and music which beat in your brain.  And with us, things are different.  There is the future of a country, the future of an Empire, always at stake, when one sleeps and when one wakes.”

Selingman nodded his head vigorously.

“Frankly,” he admitted, “I sympathise with you.  Responsibility I hate.  And yours, Mr. Foley,” he added, “is a great one.  I am a friend of England.  I am a friend of the England who should be.  As your country is to-day, I fear that she has very few friends indeed, apart from her own shores.  You may gain allies from reasons of policy, but you have not the national gifts which win friendship.”

“How do you account for it?” Mr. Foley asked him.

“Your Press, for one thing,” Selingman replied; “your Press, written for and inspired with the whole spirit of the bourgeoisie.  You prate about your Empire, but you’ve never learnt yet to think imperially.  But there, it is not for this I crossed the Channel.  It is to be with Maraton.”

“So long as you do not take him from me, I will not grudge you his company,” Mr. Foley remarked, rising.  “On the other hand, I would very much rather that you made your bow to my niece to-night than went to Maxendorf.”

Maraton felt suddenly a twinge of something I which was almost compunction.  Mr. Foley’s face was white and tired.  He had the air of a man oppressed with anxieties which he was doing his best to conceal.

“If I can,” he said, “I should like very much to see Lady Elisabeth.  Perhaps I shall be in time after our interview with Maxendorf, or before.  I will go home and change, on the chance.”

The Prime Minister nodded, but his slightly relaxed expression seemed to show that he appreciated Maraton’s intention.  Selingman looked after him gloomily as he left the room.