y, and
an organisation complex beyond his understanding."

"Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you are
holding down--something that stirs and presses."

"You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would brush these
difficult questions aside. "I have not roused the force to destroy
myself--trust me."

"I wonder," said Graham.

Ostrog stared.

"Must the world go this way?" said Graham, with his emotions at the
speaking point. "Must it indeed go in this way? Have all our hopes been
vain?"

"What do you mean?" said Ostrog. "Hopes?"

"I came from a democratic age. And I find an aristocratic tyranny!"

"Well,--but you are the chief tyrant."

Graham shook his head.

"Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question. It is the way that
change has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the
best--the suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to better
things."

"But aristocracy! those people I met--"

"Oh! not those!" said Ostrog. "But for the most part they go to their
death. Vice and pleasure! They have no children. That sort of stuff will
die out. If the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no turning
back. An easy road to excess, convenient Euthanasia for the pleasure
seekers singed in the flame, that is the way to improve the race!"

"Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet--." He thought for an instant.
"There is that other thing--the Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Will
that die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is a
force that even you--"

Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenly
than before.

"Don't you trouble about these things," he said. "Everything will be
settled in a few days now. The Crowd is a huge foolish beast. What if
it does not die out? Even if it does not die, it can still be tamed
and driven. I have no sympathy with servile men. You heard those people
shouting and singing two nights ago. They were taught that song. If you
had taken any man there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, he could
not have told you. They think they are shouting for you, that they are
loyal and devoted to you. Just then they were ready to slaughter the
Council. To-day--they are already murmuring against those who have
overthrown the Council."

"No, no," said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary,
without joy or pride, and because in me--in me--they hoped."

"And what was their