‘Mrs. Mutimer is greatly her friend, I believe,’ said the vicar.

’I believe so.  But let us speak of this paper.  I want, if possible, to understand Westlake’s position.  Have you ever read the thing?’

‘Frequently.’

’Now here is an article signed by Westlake.  You know his books?  How has he fallen to this?  His very style has abandoned him, his English smacks of the street corners, of Radical clubs.  The man is ruined; it is next. to impossible that he should ever again do good work, such as we used to have from him.  The man who wrote “Daphne”!  Oh, it is monstrous!’

‘It is something of a problem to me,’ Mr. Wyvern admitted.  ’Had he been a younger man, or if his writing had been of a different kind.  Yet his sincerity is beyond doubt.’

‘I doubt it,’ Hubert broke in.  ’Not his sincerity in the beginning; but he must long since have ached to free himself.  It is such a common thing for a man to commit himself to some pronounced position in public life and for very shame shrink from withdrawing.  He would not realise what it meant.  Now in the revolutionary societies of the Continent there is something that appeals to the imagination.  A Nihilist, with Siberia or death before him, fighting against a damnable tyranny—­the best might sacrifice everything for that.  But English Socialism!  It is infused with the spirit of shopkeeping; it appeals to the vulgarest minds; it keeps one eye on personal safety, the other on the capitalist’s strong-box; it is stamped commonplace, like everything originating with the English lower classes.  How does it differ from Radicalism, the most contemptible claptrap of politics, except in wanting to hurry a little the rule of the mob?  Well, I am too subjective.  Help me, if you can, to understand Westlake.’

Hubert was pale and sorrow-stricken; his movements were heavy with weariness, but he had all at once begun to speak with the old fire, the old scorn.  He rested his chin upon his hand and waited for his companion’s reply.

‘At your age,’ said Mr. Wyvern, smiling half sadly, ’I, too, had a habit of vehement speaking, but it was on the other side.  I was a badly paid curate working in a wretched parish.  I lived among the vilest and poorest of the people, and my imagination was constantly at boiling-point.  I can only suppose that Westlake has been led to look below the surface of society and has been affected as I was then.  He has the mind of a poet; probably he was struck with horror to find over what a pit he had been living in careless enjoyment.  He is tender-hearted; of a sudden he felt himself criminal, to be playing with beautiful toys whilst a whole world lived only to sweat and starve.  The appeal of the miserable seemed to be to him personally.  It is what certain sects call conversion in religion, a truth addressing itself with unwonted and invincible force to the individual soul.’

‘And you, too, were a Socialist?’