n whom nobody had ever
trusted without regretting it. _Henry G. Surface_--whose name was a
synonym for those traits and things which honest men of all peoples and
climes have always hated most, treachery, perfidy, base betrayal of
trust, shameful dishonesty--who had crowded the word _infamy_ from the
popular lexicon of politics with the keener, more biting epithet,
_Surfaceism_. And here--wonder of wonders--sat Surface before him, drawn
back to the scene of his fall like a murderer to the body and the
scarlet stain upon the floor, caught, trapped, the careful mask of many
years plucked from him at a sudden word, leaving him no covering upon
earth but his smooth white hands. And he, Queed, was this man's closest,
his only friend, chosen out of all the world to live with him and
minister to his declining years....

"It's true!" now broke through the concealing hands. "I am that man....
God help me!"

Queed looked unseeingly out of the window, where the sun was couching in
a bed of copper flame stippled over with brightest azure. Why had he
done it? What crazy prompting had struck from him that promise to yoke
his destiny forever with this terrible old man? If Nicolovius, the
Fenian refugee, had never won his liking, Surface, the Satan apostate,
was detestable to him. What devil of impulse had trapped from him the
mad offer to spend his days in the company of such a creature, and in
the shadow of so odious an ill-fame?

As on the day when Fifi had asked him her innocent question about
altruism, a sudden tide swept the young man's thoughts inward. And after
them, this time, groped the blundering feet of his spirit.

Here was he, a mature man, who, in point of work, in all practical and
demonstrable ways, was the millionth man. He was a great editorial
writer, which was a minor but genuine activity. He was a yet greater
writer on social science, which was one of the supreme activities. On
this side, then, certainly the chief side, there could be no question
about the successfulness of his life. His working life was, or would be
before he was through, brilliantly successful. But it had for some time
been plain to him that he stopped short there. He was a great workman,
but that was all. He was a superb rationalist; but after that he did not
exist.

Through the science of Human Intercourse, he saw much more of people now
than he had ever done before, and thus it had become driven home upon
him that most people had two li