Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/185

 tralia. Do you see him figuring on the Australian postage stamps—and running the country like a new Jerusalem?"

The eyes watched Richard fixedly.

"If he's got a proper backing, why not?" Somers answered.

"I don't say why not. I ask you, will he? Won't you say how you feel?"

Richard sat quite still, not even thinking, but suspending himself. And in the suspense his heart went sad, oh so empty, inside him. He looked at Jaz, and the two men read the meaning in each other's eyes.

"You think he won't?" said Jaz, triumphing.

"No, I think he won't," said Richard.

"There now. I knew you felt like that."

"And yet," said Richard, " if men were men still—if they had any of that belief in love they pretend to have—if they were fit to follow Kangaroo," he added fiercely, feeling grief in his heart.

Jaz dropped his head and studied his knuckles, a queer, blank smile setting round his mouth.

"You have to take things as they are," he said in a small voice.

Richard sat silent, his heart for the moment broken again.

"And," added Jaz, looking up with a slow, subtle smile, "if men aren't what Kangaroo wants them to be, why should they be? If they don't want a new Jerusalem, why should they have it? It's another catch. They like to hear Kangaroo's sweet talk—and they'll probably follow him if he'll bring off a good big row, and they think he can make it all pretty afterwards." Again he smiled, but bitterly, mockingly. "I don't know why I say these things to you, I'm sure. But it's as well for a man to get to the bottom of what he thinks, isn't it? And I feel, you know, that you and me think alike, if we allow ourselves to think."

Richard looked at him, but never answered. He felt somehow treacherous.

"Kangaroo's clever," resumed Jaz. "He's a Jew, and he's damn clever. Maybe he's the cleverest. I'll tell you why. You're not offended now at what I say, are you?"