Page:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu/326

 at the floor, his mouth moving mechanically. He sat perfectly square, one hand on either knee, his back bowed out, his head drooping forward. It was as if there were no more muscular force in the whole man—as if he were one of those ancient things one sees sunning themselves on benches by the walls of workhouses.

"But," I said angrily, "it's not all over, you can make a fight for it still."

"You don't seem to understand," he answered, "it is all over—the whole thing. I ran Churchill and his conscious rectitude gang for all they were worth . . . Well, I liked them, I was a fool to give way to pity.—But I did.—One grows weak among people like you. Of course I knew that their day was over . . . And it's all over," he said again after a long pause.

"And what will you do?" I asked, half hysterically.

"I don't just know," he answered; "we've none of us gone under before. There haven't been enough really to clash until she came."

The dead tranquillity of his manner was overwhelming; there was nothing to be said. I was