t that the return to Maltby's yard might have many points
of interest. But the spirit had gone out of him.

12

For three days the two friends avoided each other, and then Prothero
went to Benham's room. Benham was smoking cigarettes--Lady Marayne, in
the first warmth of his filial devotion, had prohibited his pipe--and
reading Webb's INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. "Hello!" he said coldly, scarcely
looking up, and continued to read that absorbing work.

"I keep on thinking how I jumped down from that damned dog-cart," said
Prothero, without any preface.

"It didn't matter in the least," said Benham distantly.

"Oh! ROT," said Prothero. "I behaved like a coward."

Benham shut his book.

"Benham," said Prothero. "You are right about aristocracy, and I am
wrong. I've been thinking about it night and day."

Benham betrayed no emotion. But his tone changed. "Billy," he said,
"there are cigarettes and whiskey in the corner. Don't make a fuss about
a trifle."

"No whiskey," said Billy, and lit a cigarette. "And it isn't a trifle."

He came to Benham's hearthrug. "That business," he said, "has changed
all my views. No--don't say something polite! I see that if one hasn't
the habit of pride one is bound to get off a dogcart when it seems
likely to smash. You have the habit of pride, and I haven't. So far as
the habit of pride goes, I come over to the theory of aristocracy."

Benham said nothing, but he put down Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and
reached out for and got and lit a cigarette.

"I give up 'Go as you please.' I give up the natural man. I admit
training. I perceive I am lax and flabby, unguarded, I funk too much, I
eat too much, and I drink too much. And, yet, what I have always liked
in you, Benham, is just this--that you don't."

"I do," said Benham.

"Do what?"

"Funk."

"Benham, I believe that naturally you funk as much as I do. You're more
a thing of nerves than I am, far more. But you keep yourself up to
the mark, and I have let myself get flabby. You're so right. You're
so utterly right. These last nights I've confessed it--aloud. I had
an inkling of it--after that rag. But now it's as clear as daylight.
I don't know if you mean to go on with me, after what's happened, but
anyhow I want you to know, whether you end our friendship or not--"

"Billy, don't be an old ass," said Benham.

Both young men paused for a moment. They made no demonstrations. But the
strain was at an end between them.

"I'