light or colour.

"Do you think that is possible?" he asked sceptically. "In a democracy
like ours is any man so strong that he can stand alone?"

"Well, of course he is not alone as long as he has the support of the
majority."

"You may have this support--I neither affirm nor deny it--but upon what
does it rest? What do you offer the people that is better than the
principles or the promises of the old parties? I heard you speak once,
but you did not answer this question--to my mind the only question that
is vital. You talked a great deal about humanizing industry--a vague
phrase which might mean anything or nothing, since humanity covers all
the vices as well as all the virtues of the race. Benham could use that
phrase as oratorically as you do, for it rolls easily off the tongue and
commits one to nothing."

Vetch's face lost suddenly its rigid gravity, as if he had suffered a
rush of energy to the brain. His eyes became blue again, and as keen as
the blade of a knife.

"I believe, and the people who are with me believe, that I can make
something out of the muddle if I am given a chance," he replied. "Oh, I
know that the reactionaries are in the saddle now--that they have been
ever since they had the war as an excuse to mount! But I know also that
you can no more drive out by law the spirit of liberalism from the
American mind than you can drive out nature with a pitchfork. For a
little while you may think you have got the better of it; but it will
crop out in spite of you. Now, I am a part of returning nature, of the
inevitable rebound toward the spirit of liberalism. In the thought of
the people who voted for me, I stand for the indestructible common sense
of the American mind. I am one of the first signs of the new times."

"And you believe that you prove this," asked Stephen frankly, "by
turning over your power of appointment to a group of self-interested
politicians? You show your ability to govern by evading the first
requirement of good government--that there should be honest and able men
in control of public offices?"

A flicker came and went in the blue eyes. "I told you the other day,"
answered Vetch in a low voice, "that I used the tools at my command, and
I tell you now that I am sometimes forced to use rotten ones. People say
that I am an opportunist; but who has ever discovered any other policy
that deals with life so completely? They say also that I am without
public conscience--another name fo