Page:Out of due time, Ward, 1906.djvu/49

Rh "That is just the point I want to settle myself. Is it a real cause or is it moonshine? and whichever it is, what is the good of dragging in the scum of the earth to help him and then pretending that he hardly knows them? He meant them to get away before we got back."

Again silence, while he walked on one side of the road and my donkey on the other.

"How long have you known the Count?" I asked at length.

"Almost a year. I met him at the house of an old friend, a parish priest in the East End; a man of an extraordinary brain; a perfect mass of useless learning. He was quite excited at giving me a chance of meeting the Count, and I, in my insular ignorance, had never even heard of him then. Well, we made a night of it, the most amazing night. That fellow, sitting in the stuffy little room, talked philosophy till four in the morning, and—I hardly believe it now—but instead of being bored I was in a whirl of excitement. It was amazing, astonishing. That death's head of his never moved nor his skinny hands; he sat stock still, he might have been a lay figure, even his lips hardly moved. I was too excited to sleep that night, and I was wild to see him again. After that we took long walks all over London, and my goodness, how he talked! It was real stuff too. I know just enough to be sure that his philosophy is quite first-rate. He knows his Kant and his Hegel as well or better than anybody in England. They think no end of him in Germany among the sets that know him."

"Well, but what's the 'cause,' the object?"

"You will have to swear by those donkey's ears that you won't be as indiscreet as I am."

"Most solemnly."

We both, and the donkey, paused and looked behind to see if Marcelle were coming.

"It is, as far as I can make out, the reform of the