I was conscious that Polehampton had left me, that he had gone from behind me; but I don’t think I was conscious of the passage of time. God knows how long I stood there. Now and then I saw Polehampton’s face before my eyes, with the panic-stricken eyes, the ruffled hair, the lines of tears seaming the cheeks, seeming to look out at me from the crumple of the paper that I held. I knew too, that there were faces like that everywhere; everywhere, faces of panic-stricken little people of no more account than the dead in graveyards, just the material to make graveyards, nothing more; little people of absolutely no use but just to suffer horribly from this blow coming upon them from nowhere. It had never occurred to me at the time that their inheritance had passed to me ... to us. And yet, I began to wonder stupidly, what was the difference between me to-day and me yesterday. There wasn’t any, not any at all. Only to-day I had nothing more to do.
The doors at the end of the room flew open, as if burst by a great outcry penetrating from without, and a man appeared running up the room—one of those men who bear news eternally, who catch the distant clamour and carry it into quiet streets. Why did he disturb me? Did I want to hear his news? I wanted to think of Churchill; to think of how to explain.... The man was running up the room.
“I say ... I say, you beggars....”
I was beginning to wonder how it was that I felt such an absolute conviction of being alone, and it was then, I believe, that in this solitude that had descended upon my soul I seemed to see the shape of an approaching Nemesis. It is permitted to no man to break with his past, with the past of his kind, and to throw away the treasure of his future. I began to suspect I had gained nothing; I began to understand that even such a catastrophe was possible. I sat down in the nearest chair. Then my fear passed away. The room was filling; it hummed with excited voices. “Churchill! No better than the others,” I heard somebody saying. Two men had stopped talking. They were middle-aged, a little gray, and ruddy. The face of one was angry, and of the other sad. “He wanted only to be found out. What a fall in the mud.” “No matter,” said the other, “one is made a little sad. He stood for everything I had been pinning my faith to.” They passed on. A brazen voice bellowed in the distance. “The greatest fall of any minister that ever was.” A tall, heavy journalist in a white waistcoat was the centre of a group that turned slowly upon itself, gathering bulk. “Done for—stood up to the last. I saw him get into his brougham. The police had a job.... There’s quite a riot down there.... Pale as a ghost. Gurnard? Gurnard magnificent. Very cool and in his best form. Threw them over without as much as a wink. Outraged conscience speech. Magnificent. Why it’s the chance of his life.” ... And then for a time the voices and the faces seemed to pass away and die out. I had dropped my paper, and as I stooped to pick it up the voices returned.
—“Granger ... Etchingham Granger.... Sister is going to marry Gurnard.”
I got on to my hands and knees to pick up the paper, of course. What I did not understand was where the water came from. Otherwise it was pretty clear. Somebody seemed to be in a fit. No, he wasn’t drunk; look at his teeth. What did they want to look at his teeth for; was he a horse?
It must have been I that was in the fit. There were a lot of men round me, the front row on their knees—holding me, some of them. A man in a red coat and plush breeches—a waiter—was holding a glass of water; another had a small bottle. They were talking about me under their breaths. At one end of the horseshoe someone said:
“He’s the man who....” Then he caught my eye. He lowered his voice, and the abominable whisper ran round among the heads. It was easy to guess: “the man who was got at.” I was to be that for the rest of my life. I was to be famous at last. There came the desire to be out of it.
I struggled to my feet.