“But do you mean to say,” Tallente asked, “that when Horlock goes down, as go down he must within the next few months, you are not prepared to take his place?”

“I should never accept the task of forming a government,” Dartrey said quietly, “unless I am absolutely driven to do so.  I have shown the truth to the world.  I have shown to the people whom I love their destiny, but I have not the gifts to lead them.  I am asking you, Tallente, to join us, to enter Parliament as one of our party and to lead for us in the House of Commons.”

“Yours is the offer of a prince,” Tallente replied, after a brief, nervous pause.  “If I hesitate, you must remember all that it means for me.”

Dartrey smiled.

“Now, my friend,” he said, “look me in the face and answer me this question.  You know little of us Democrats as a party.  You see nothing but a hotchpotch of strange people, struggling and striving to attain definite form.  Naturally you are full of prejudices.  Yet consider your own political position.  I am not here to make capital out of a man’s disappointment in his friends, but has your great patron used you well?  Horlock offers you a grudging and belated place in his Cabinet.  What did he say to you when you came hack from Hellesfield?” Tallente was silent.  There was, in fact, no answer which he could make.  “I do not wish to dwell on that,” Dartrey went on.  “Ingratitude is the natural sequence of the distorted political ideals which we are out to destroy.  You should be in the frame of mind, Tallente, to see things clearly.  You must realise the rotten condition of the political party to which Horlock belongs—­the Coalitionists, the Whip, or whatever they like to call themselves.  The government of this country since the war has been a farce and a mockery.  We are dropping behind in the world’s race.  Labour fattens with sops, develops a spirit of greed and production languishes.  You know why.  Labour would toil for its country, Labour can feel patriotism with the best, but Labour hates to toil under the earth, upon the earth, and in the factories of the world for the sake of the profiteer.  This is the national spirit, that jealousy, that slackness, which the last ten years has developed.  There is a new Little Englander abroad and he speaks with the voice of Labour.  It is our task to find the soul of the people.  And I have come to you for your aid.”

Tallente looked for a moment down to the bay and listened to the sound of the incoming tide breaking upon the rocks.  Dimmer now, but even more majestic in the twilight, the great, immovable cliffs towered up to the sky.  An owl floated up from the grove of trees beneath and with a strange cry circled round for a moment to drop on to the lawn, a shapeless, solemn mass of feathers.  At the back of the hills a little rim of gold, no wider than a wedding ring, announced the rising of the moon.  He felt a touch upon his sleeve, a very sweet, persuasive voice in his ear.  Nora had left Miller in the background and was standing by his side.