Earwaker’s struggle with the editor-in-chief of The Weekly Post and the journalist Kenyon came to its natural close about a month after Godwin Peak’s disappearance.  Only a vein of obstinacy in his character had kept him so long in a position he knew to be untenable.  From the first his sympathy with Mr. Runcorn’s politics had been doubtful, and experience of the working of a Sunday newspaper, which appealed to the ignobly restive, could not encourage his adhesion to this form of Radicalism.  He anticipated dismissal by retirement, and Kenyon, a man of coarsely vigorous fibre, at once stepped into his place.

Now that he had leisure to review the conflict, Earwaker understood that circumstances had but hastened his transition from a moderate ardour in the parliamentary cause of the people, to a regretful neutrality regarding all political movements.  Birth allied him with the proletarian class, and his sentiment in favour of democracy was unendangered by the disillusions which must come upon every intellectual man brought into close contact with public affairs.  The course of an education essentially aristocratic (Greek and Latin can have no other tendency so long as they are the privilege of the few) had not affected his natural bent, nor was he the man to be driven into reaction because of obstacles to his faith inseparable from human weakness.  He had learnt that the emancipation of the poor and untaught must proceed more slowly than he once hoped—­that was all.  Restored to generous calm, he could admit that such men as Runcorn and Kenyon—­the one with his polyarchic commercialism, the other with his demagogic violence—­had possibly a useful part to play at the present stage of things.  He, however, could have no place in that camp.  Too indiscreetly he had hoisted his standard of idealism, and by stubborn resistance of insuperable forces he had merely brought forward the least satisfactory elements of his own character.  ‘Hold on!’ cried Malkin.  ’Fight the grovellers to the end!’ But Earwaker had begun to see himself in a light of ridicule.  There was just time to save his self-respect.

He was in no concern for his daily bread.  With narrower resources in the world of print, he might have been compelled, like many another journalist, to swallow his objections and write as Runcorn dictated; for the humble folks at home could not starve to allow him the luxury of conscientiousness, whatever he might have been disposed to do on his own account.  Happily, his pen had a scope beyond politics, and by working steadily for reviews, with which he was already connected, he would be able to keep his finances in reasonable order until, perchance, some hopeful appointment offered itself.  In a mood of much cheerfulness he turned for ever from party uproar, and focused his mind upon those interests of humanity which so rarely coincide with the aims of any league among men.

Half a year went by, and at length he granted himself a short holiday, the first in a twelvemonth.  It took the form of a voyage to Marseilles, and thence of a leisurely ramble up the Rhone.  Before returning, he spent a day or two in Paris, for the most part beneath cafe’ awnings, or on garden seats—­an indulgence of contented laziness.