Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/105

Rh dwindle. Young Dent grieves to see me injuring my own case. Too damned a fool to see what will happen to the report! You see if only they can convince themselves I am just a prig and an egotist and an impractical bore, they escape from a great deal more than my poor propositions. They escape from the doubt in themselves. By dismissing me they dismiss their own consciences. And then they can scamper off and be sensible little piggy-wigs and not bother any more about what is to happen to mankind in the long run.... Do you begin to realize the sort of fight, upside down in a dustbin, that that Committee is for me?”

“You have to go through with it,” Dr. Martineau repeated.

“I have. If I can. But I warn you I have been near breaking point. And if I tumble off the high horse, if I can’t keep going regularly there to ride the moral high horse, that Committee will slump into utter scoundrelism. It will turn out a long, inconsistent, botched, unreadable report that will back up all sorts of humbugging bargains and sham settlements. It will contain some half-baked scheme to pacify the miners at the expense of the general welfare. It won’t even succeed in doing that. But in the general confusion old Cassidy will get away with a series of hauls that may run into millions. Which will last his time—damn him! And that is where we are.... Oh! I know! I know!.... I must do this job. I don’t need any