"And tell him?"
"Yes. He'll have to learn—somehow and from somebody. And I think I can tell him better than anybody else."
Then she told me why she had sent for me. "I felt I had to tell somebody about it," she said, "and you were the only person I could think of." She added: "That's a compliment, though it mayn't sound one. You can guess how I felt—reading that speech and recognizing parts of it.... I'm so glad—now—that you came—it's doing me good to have this talk with you...."
We talked on, but there wasn't much else to say. The Liverpool train came in at an adjoining platform; I wanted her to stay for a later one, but she wouldn't. Then I offered to go with her to Liverpool, but she said (sensibly enough) that I had my own work to do and must get back to it. Just before the train started she leaned out of the window and touched my arm. "We mustn't let Terry go under, must we?" she said eagerly. "This may seem—when he hears about it—the last straw—but he won't go under, will he?"
"Not if you can stop him, I know."
"And you," she insisted. She went on quickly: "I don't want to have all the job to myself. You've got to help—we've all got to help.... You will help me, won't you?"
"All I possibly can," I answered, and she smiled happily as the train separated us.
VI
I went back to town by an express that had just come in. At Rugby the bookstalls were open and I bought half-a-dozen morning papers, of all kinds and sizes from twenty-four-page Diehard Conservative to the daily pennyworth of revolution. I don't think I realized the full significance of what June had told me till I had thoroughly digested at least a score of their closely printed columns. First of all I read Karelsky's speech verbatim in The Times. It was just what I expected—noisy, blatant, self-assertive, full of impertinent jibes at other investigators, and enlivened by quips that would have done credit to a Hyde Park orator. The whole thing gave me the impression of being addressed to the man in the street rather than to the Conference members; there was hardly a sentence that the layman could not think he understood. Theories which most men would have advanced cautiously and modestly, Karelsky hammered out with a sort of slanging, impudent dogmatism; there never could have been, I think, such language spoken to a scientific assembly before.
In a long leading article The Times struck a note of cautious approval. "The fact that Herr Karelsky's methods of obtaining publicity savour rather of the market-place than the laboratory, should not blind us to the possibility—nay, even the probability—that he has made a noteworthy contribution to the alleviation of human distress.... It would seem that, if the cases he cites are authentic, he has indeed made an important discovery.... Investigators in all countries will not be slow in examining carefully all the details, many of which, in his desire to tickle the ears of the groundlings, Herr Karelsky has doubtless withheld...."