"Badly; there is a sense of flatness. He embodied the life of the village in a way one could not believe unless one had lived there. I've seen a lot of him in the last few months; we were fairly driven into each other's society."
"How do you get on together?"
"To know Curzon intimately goes halfway towards converting one to his way of thinking," said Paul, slowly.
May looked up quickly.
"I don't mean that I am fully prepared to accept his opinions, but I have modified my views concerning them," Paul went on. "A man like Curzon, and his enormous power for good, cannot be ignored. His creed, which makes him what he is, must be reckoned with as a motive-force in the world. I said to myself at one time that, starting from opposite poles, he and I worked for the same end—the good of the race. But where I seem only to scratch the surface, he gets below it. Look at Burney, for example. I believed I had made a man of him by restoring his self-respect and giving him a fresh chance—by trusting him, in fact. It did well enough for a time, but then he broke out worse than ever. Then, from what Tom told me, Curzon stepped in, saved him from suicide, and saved him from himself; and has given him, apparently, some principle to live by that will turn him into a fine character yet—at any rate, I get excellent accounts of him."
"I did not know he had tried to kill himself," said May; "perhaps that is what has sobered poor Rose Lancaster so effectually. She told me the other day that she would marry no one but Tom. By the way, what brought you to London?"
"Mixed motives. Sheer dulness for one thing."
"You once aired a theory that only stupid people could be dull."
"Then, I suppose, I have grown stupid; I have not enough to occupy me, for one thing. If I could carry out all my whims I could be busy enough; but I have had to abandon that scheme for rebuilding a good many of my cottages from want of money, and that same want stands between me and my one ambition: a seat in Parliament. I might have had a chance of a vacancy in the autumn. By the way, as you intend to throw me over, I trust that amongst your numerous friends you will find me another tenant for the Court."
"I don't understand what you are talking of! Who is going to throw you over?"