day.'

Egremont smiled.

'My one aim,' he remarked, 'is to persuade them to forget that there
are such things as questions of the day.'

Dalmaine also smiled, and with a slight involuntary curling of the lip.

'Ah, I remember our discussions on the Atlantic. I scarcely thought you
would apply those ideas in their--their fulness, when you began
practical work. You surely will admit that, in a time when their
interests are engaging so much attention, working men should--for
instance--go to the polls with intelligent preparation.'

'I'd rather they didn't go to the polls at all,' Walter replied. He
knew that this was exaggeration, but it pleased him to exaggerate. He
enjoyed the effect on the honourable member's broad countenance.

'Come, come!' said Dalmaine, laughing with appearance of entering into
the joke. 'At that rate, English freedom would soon be at an end. One
might as well abolish newspapers.'

'In my opinion, the one greatest boon that could be granted the working
class. I do my best to dissuade them from the reading of newspapers.'

Dalmaine turned the whole matter into a jest. Secretly he believed that
Egremont was poking contemptuous fun at him, but it was his principle
to receive everything with good-humour. They drew apart again, each
feeling more strongly than ever the instinctive opposition between
their elements. It amounted to a reciprocal dislike, an irritation
provoked by each other's presence. Dalmaine was beginning to suspect
Egremont of some scheme too deep for his fathoming; it was easier for
him to believe anything, than that idealism pure and simple was at the
bottom of such behaviour. Walter, on the other hand, viewed the
politician's personality with something more than contempt. Dalmaine
embodied those forces of philistinism, that essence of the vulgar
creed, which Egremont had undertaken to attack, and which, as he
already felt, were likely to yield as little before his efforts as a
stone wall under the blow of a naked hand. Two such would do well to
keep apart.

On returning to the drawing-room, Egremont kept watch for a vacant
place by Paula. Presently he was able to move to her side. She spread
her fan upon her lap, and, ruffling its edge of white fur, said
negligently:

'So you decided to waste an evening, Mr. Egremont.'

'I decided to have an evening of rest and enjoyment.'

'I suppose you are working dreadfully hard. When do you open your
library?'

'Scarcely in les