Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/308

 that your poor two dozen of giants can resist all the forces of our people and of all the alien peoples who will come to our aid; if you think you can change Humanity at a blow, in a single generation, and alter the nature and stature of Man"

He flung out an arm. "Go to them now, Sir! See them, for all the evil they have done, crouching among their wounded"

He stopped, as though he had glanced at Redwood's son by chance.

There came a pause.

"Go to them," he said.

"That is what I want to do."

"Then go now"

He turned and pressed the button of a bell; without, in immediate response, came a sound of opening doors and hastening feet.

The talk was at an end. The display was over. Abruptly Caterham seemed to contract, to shrivel up into a yellow-faced, fagged-out, middle-sized, middle-aged man. He stepped forward, as if he were stepping out of a picture, and with a complete assumption of that friendliness that lies behind all the public conflicts of our race, he held out his hand to Redwood.

As if it were a matter of course, Redwood shook hands with him for the second time.