A clatter of the wheels of heavy carts and of the hoofs of heavy horses on granite struck like hammer blows on my ears, coming from the well of the court-yard below. Soane had finished his bottle and was walking to the cupboard. He paused at the window and stood looking down.
“Strong beggars, those porters,” he said; “I couldn’t carry that weight of paper—not with my rot on it, let alone Callan’s. You’d think it would break down the carts.”
I understood that they were loading the carts for the newspaper mails. There was still time to stop them. I got up and went toward the window, very swiftly. I was going to call to them to stop loading. I threw the casement open.
Of course, I did not stop them. The solution flashed on me with the breath of the raw air. It was ridiculously simple. If I thwarted her, well, she would respect me. But her business in life was the inheritance of the earth, and, however much she might respect me—or by so much the more—she would recognise that I was a force to deflect her from the right line—“a disease for me,” she had said.
“What I have to do,” I said, “is to show her that ... that I had her in my hands and that I co-operated loyally.”
The thing was so simple that I triumphed; triumphed with the full glow of wine, triumphed looking down into that murky court-yard where the lanthorns danced about in the rays of a great arc lamp. The gilt letters scattered all over the windows blazed forth the names of Fox’s innumerable ventures. Well, he ... he had been a power, but I triumphed. I had co-operated loyally with the powers of the future, though I wanted no share in the inheritance of the earth. Only, I was going to push into the future. One of the great carts got into motion amidst a shower of sounds that whirled upward round and round the well. The black hood swayed like the shoulders of an elephant as it passed beneath my feet under the arch. It disappeared—it was co-operating too; in a few hours people at the other end of the country—of the world—would be raising their hands. Oh, yes, it was co-operating loyally.
I closed the window. Soane was holding a champagne bottle in one hand. In the other he had a paper knife of Fox’s—a metal thing, a Japanese dagger or a Deccan knife. He sliced the neck off the bottle.
“Thought you were going to throw yourself out,” he said; “I wouldn’t stop you. I’m sick of it ... sick.”
“Look at this ... to-night ... this infernal trick of Fox’s.... And I helped too.... Why?... I must eat.” He paused “... and drink,” he added. “But there is starvation for no end of fools in this little move. A few will be losing their good names too.... I don’t care, I’m off.... By-the-bye: What is he doing it for? Money? Funk?—You ought to know. You must be in it too. It’s not hunger with you. Wonderful what people will do to keep their pet vice going.... Eh?” He swayed a little. “You don’t drink—what’s your pet vice?”