Then he looked up
at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute
belief in the reality of his story.

"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had
ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master man away
there in the north, with influence and property and a great reputation,
but none of it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the
place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things
to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I
had been in love with her before I knew that she had any care for me,
before I had imagined that she would dare--that we should dare, all my
life had seemed vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes.
Night after night and through the long days I had longed and desired--my
soul had beaten against the thing forbidden!

"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things.
It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's
there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left
them in their Crisis to do what they could."

"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.

"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I
had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group
themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to
do things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had
been playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague,
monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and
agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of
leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a sort of
compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public
emotional stupidities and catchwords--the Gang that kept the world noisy
and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting
towards infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the
shades and complications of the year--the year something or other ahead.
I had it all down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had
been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer
new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes.
It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I
sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and
rejoicing--rejoicing that I had