thero frowned over this, and then he made a sweeping proposition.

"YOU CANNOT HAVE ARISTOCRACY," he said, "BECAUSE, YOU SEE--ALL MEN ARE
RIDICULOUS. Democracy has to fight its way out from under plutocracy.
There is nothing else to be done."

"But a man in my position--?"

"It's a ridiculous position. You may try to escape being ridiculous. You
won't succeed."

It seemed to Benham for a moment as though Prothero had got to the
bottom of the question, and then he perceived that he had only got to
the bottom of himself. Benham was pacing the floor.

He turned at the open window, held out a long forefinger, and uttered
his countervailing faith.

"Even if he is ridiculous, Prothero, a man may still be an aristocrat. A
man may anyhow be as much of an aristocrat as he can be."

Prothero reflected. "No," he said, "it sounds all right, but it's wrong.
I hate all these advantages and differences and distinctions. A man's a
man. What you say sounds well, but it's the beginning of pretension, of
pride--"

He stopped short.

"Better, pride than dishonour," said Benham, "better the pretentious
life than the sordid life. What else is there?"

"A life isn't necessarily sordid because it isn't pretentious," said
Prothero, his voice betraying a defensive disposition.

"But a life with a large income MUST be sordid unless it makes some sort
of attempt to be fine...."

9

By transitions that were as natural as they were complicated and
untraceable Prothero found his visit to Chexington developing into a
tangle of discussions that all ultimately resolved themselves into an
antagonism of the democratic and the aristocratic idea. And his part
was, he found, to be the exponent of the democratic idea. The next day
he came down early, his talk with Benham still running through his head,
and after a turn or so in the garden he was attracted to the front door
by a sound of voices, and found Lady Marayne had been up still earlier
and was dismounting from a large effective black horse. This extorted an
unwilling admiration from him. She greeted him very pleasantly and made
a kind of introduction of her steed. There had been trouble at a gate,
he was a young horse and fidgeted at gates; the dispute was still bright
in her. Benham she declared was still in bed. "Wait till I have a mount
for him." She reappeared fitfully in the breakfast-room, and then he was
left to Benham until just before lunch. They read and afterwards, as t