ty, he
doesn't renounce his journey because he has to wash in dirty water on the
way: The mob--how I loathe it!"

There was such pent-up fury in those words as to astonish even one whose
life had been passed in conflict with majorities.

"I hate its mean stupidities, I hate the sound of its voice, and the look
on its face--it's so ugly, it's so little. Courtier, I suffer purgatory
from the thought that I shall scrape in by the votes of the mob. There
is sin in using this creature and I am expiating it."

To this strange outburst, Courtier at first made no reply.

"You've been working too hard," he said at last, "you're off your
balance. After all, the mob's made up of men like you and me."

"No, Courtier, the mob is not made up of men like you and me. If it were
it would not be the mob."

"It looks," Courtier answered gravely, "as if you had no business in this
galley. I've always steered clear of it myself."

"You follow your feelings. I have not that happiness."

So saying, Miltoun turned to the door.

Courtier's voice pursued him earnestly.

"Drop your politics--if you feel like this about them; don't waste your
life following whatever it is you follow; don't waste hers!"

But Miltoun did not answer.

It was a wondrous still night, when, a few minutes before twelve, with
his forehead bandaged under his hat, the champion of lost causes left the
hotel and made his way towards the Grammar School for the declaration of
the poll. A sound as of some monster breathing guided him, till, from a
steep empty street he came in sight of a surging crowd, spread over the
town square, like a dark carpet patterned by splashes of lamplight. High
up above that crowd, on the little peaked tower of the Grammar School, a
brightly lighted clock face presided; and over the passionate hopes in
those thousands of hearts knit together by suspense the sky had lifted;
and showed no cloud between them and the purple fields of air. To
Courtier descending towards the square, the swaying white faces, turned
all one way, seemed like the heads of giant wild flowers in a dark field,
shivered by wind. The night had charmed away the blue and yellow facts,
and breathed down into that throng the spirit of emotion. And he
realized all at once the beauty and meaning of this scene--expression of
the quivering forces, whose perpetual flux, controlled by the Spirit of
Balance, was the soul of the world. Thousands of hearts with the thou