ntry for the purpose of
pocketing money is cynical, and there 's generally some truth in
cynicism; but to talk about the administration of a country by which we
profit, as if it were a great and good thing, is cant. I hit you in the
wind for the benefit of myself--all right: law of nature; but to say it
does you good at the same time is beyond me."

"No, no," returned Crocker, grave and anxious; "you can't persuade me
that we 're not doing good."

"Wait a bit. It's all a question of horizons; you look at it from too
close. Put the horizon further back. You hit India in the wind, and say
it's virtuous. Well, now let's see what happens. Either the wind never
comes back, and India gasps to an untimely death, or the wind does come
back, and in the pant of reaction your blow--that's to say your
labour--is lost, morally lost labour that you might have spent where it
would n't have been lost."

"Are n't you an Imperialist?" asked Crocker, genuinely concerned.

"I may be, but I keep my mouth shut about the benefits we 're conferring
upon other people."

"Then you can't believe in abstract right, or justice?"

"What on earth have our ideas of justice or right got to do with India?"

"If I thought as you do," sighed the unhappy Crocker, "I should be all
adrift."

"Quite so. We always think our standards best for the whole world. It's
a capital belief for us. Read the speeches of our public men. Does n't
it strike you as amazing how sure they are of being in the right? It's
so charming to benefit yourself and others at the same time, though, when
you come to think of it, one man's meat is usually another's poison.
Look at nature. But in England we never look at nature--there's no
necessity. Our national point of view has filled our pockets, that's all
that matters."

"I say, old chap, that's awfully bitter," said Crocker, with a sort of
wondering sadness.

"It 's enough to make any one bitter the way we Pharisees wax fat, and at
the same time give ourselves the moral airs of a balloon. I must stick a
pin in sometimes, just to hear the gas escape." Shelton was surprised at
his own heat, and for some strange reason thought of Antonia--surely, she
was not a Pharisee.

His companion strode along, and Shelton felt sorry for the signs of
trouble on his face.

"To fill your pockets," said Crocker, "is n't the main thing. One has
just got to do things without thinking of why we do them."

"Do you ever see the o