Page:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu/298

 Soane had got hold of a couple of long-stalked glasses. They clinked together whilst he searched the cupboard for something.

"Eh, what?" he said. "It is pretty strong, isn't it? Ought to shake out some of the supporters, eh? Bill comes on to-morrow . . . do for that, I should think." He wanted a corkscrew very badly.

But that was precisely it—it would "shake out some of the supporters," and give Gurnard his patent excuse. Churchill, I knew, would stick to his line, the saner policy. But so many of the men who had stuck to Churchill would fall away now, and Gurnard, of course, would lead them to his own triumph.

It was a criminal verdict. Callan had gone out as a commissioner—with a good deal of drum-beating. And this was his report, this shriek. If it sounded across the house-tops—if I let it—good-by to the saner policy and to Churchill. It did not make any difference that Churchill's was the saner policy, because there was no one in the nation sane enough to see it. They wanted purity in high places, and here was a definite, criminal indictment against de Mersch. And de