I reminded O’Rane of his scheme for endowing schools and buying papers till the education of an entire people proceeded from a single pair of lips.
“I still believe a press-monopoly is possible,” he answered, “but who’s to be trusted with it? Horatio Bottomley is a political messiah to several millions; but I’d never give a messiah the power of a messiah unless he were ready to die as a messiah.”
“Talleyrand’s advice to those about to found new religions,” I said.
“ ‘Get yourself crucified’? Wasn’t he right? Since people began to doubt the old heaven and hell, the churches have been losing their power: they had less to offer, less to threaten; and their ministers became officials instead of martyrs. Christianity was born of one martyrdom; and it will only die when there are no more martyrs. There were martyrs in the war, if we could only make people remember them . . .”
“But the war’s over,” I interrupted. “How can you keep that exaltation alive in time of peace?”
The question was unanswered when I turned the head of the car, next day, towards London. We were both shirking our private difficulties; and, though we argued endlessly about the world as we wished to make it, the shadow of our own narrow troubles darkened that free, generous concern for humanity which we talked so eagerly of inculcating in people whose narrow troubles engrossed them no less blindly.
“I’d better tell Sonia we’re on our way back,” said O’Rane. “If you’ve any idea where we shall be to-morrow morning, I’ll say she can wire to the post-office.”
“Is she at Crowley Court?,” I asked.
“Yes. Remember taking her down there the night Tom’s death came through? She’d put her eyes on sticks for you over that, George.”
“She was at her wits’ end, poor child,” I began.