“This would rouse the echoes in an East-end club,” interposed Glazzard, with an air of good-humoured jesting.

“The difference is, my dear fellow, that it is given as an honest opinion in a private dining-room.  There’s Welwyn-Baker now—­ thick-headed old jackass!—­what right has he to be sitting in a national assembly?  Call himself what he may, it’s clearly our business to get rid of him.  There’s something infuriating in the thought that such a man can give his hee-haw for or against a proposal that concerns the nation.  His mere existence is a lie!”

“He has hardly progressed with the times,” assented Glazzard.

Lilian was listening so attentively that she forgot her dinner.

“I didn’t think you cared so much about politics,” she remarked, gravely.

“Oh, it comes out now and then.  I suppose Glazzard’s aesthetic neutrality stirs me up.”

“I am neither aesthetic nor neutral,” remarked the guest, as if casually.

Denzil laughed.

Lilian, after waiting for a further declaration from Glazzard, which did not come, said, in her soft tones: 

“You express yourself so vehemently, Denzil.”

“Why not?  These are obvious truths.  Of course I could speak just as strongly on the Conservative side with regard to many things.  I can’t say that I have much faith in the capacity or honesty of the mass of Radical voters.  If I found myself at one of the clubs of which Glazzard speaks, I should very likely get hooted down as an insolent aristocrat.  I don’t go in for crazy extremes.  There’ll never be a Utopia, and it’s only a form of lying to set such ideals before the multitude.  I believe in the distinction of classes; the only class I would altogether abolish is that of the hungry and the ragged.  So long as nature doles out the gift of brains in different proportions, there must exist social subordination.  The true Radical is the man who wishes so to order things that no one will be urged by misery to try and get out of the class he is born in.”

Glazzard agreed that this was a good way of putting it, and thereupon broached a subject so totally different that politics were finally laid aside.

When Lilian rose and withdrew, the friends remained for several minutes in silence.  They lighted cigarettes, and contemplatively watched the smoke.  Of a sudden, Quarrier bent forward upon the table.

“You shall have the explanation of this some day,” he said, in a low friendly voice, his eyes lighting with a gleam of heartfelt confidence.

“Thanks!” murmured the other.

“Tell me—­does she impress you favourably?”

“Very.  I am disposed to think highly of her.”

Denzil held out his hand, and pressed the one which Glazzard offered in return.