eatest man of his age--one of the greatest
men of all ages--not only in war but in a hundred other ways. He spent
the last six years of his life at St. Helena--in excellent health and
with companions that he talked freely to--and in all the extraordinarily
copious reports of his conversations there, we don't get a single
sentence worth repeating. If you read it, you'll see he talked like a
dull, ordinary body. The greatness had entirely evaporated from him, the
moment he was put on an island where he had nothing to do."

"Yes-s," said Thorpe, thoughtfully. He accepted the application without
any qualms about the splendour of the comparison it rested upon. He had
done the great things, just as Semple said, and there was no room for
false modesty about them in his mind. "The trouble is," he began, "that
I did what I had always thought I wanted to do most. I was quite certain
in my mind that that was what I wanted. And if we say now that I was
wrong--if we admit that that wasn't what I really wanted--why then, God
knows what it is I DO want. I'll be hanged if I do!"

"Come back to the City," Semple told him. "That's where you belong."

"No--no!" Thorpe spoke with emphasis. "That's where you're all off. I
don't belong in the City at all. I hate the whole outfit. What the devil
amusement would it be to me to take other men's money away from them?
I'd be wanting all the while to give it back to them. And certainly I
wouldn't get any fun out of their taking my money away from me. Besides,
it doesn't entertain me. I've no taste at all for it. I never look at a
financial paper now. I could no more interest myself in all that stuff
again than I could fly. That's the hell of it--to be interested in
anything."

"Go in for politics," the other suggested, with less warmth.

"Yes, I know," Thorpe commented, with a lingering tone. "Perhaps I ought
to think more about that. By the way, what's Plowden doing? I've lost
all track of him."

"Abroad somewhere, I fancy," Semple replied. His manner exhibited a
profound indifference. "When his mother died he came into something--I
don't know how much. I don't think I've seen him since--and that must
have been six months and more ago."

"Yes. I heard about it at the time," the other said. "It must be about
that. His sister and brother--the young Plowdens--they're coming to us
at the end of the week, I believe. You didn't hit it off particularly
with Plowden, eh?"

Semple emitted a conte