"Never until to-night," Selingman admitted. "When I heard that you were in England, I made up my mind to come over. To-night seemed to me propitious. I wanted to understand this marvellous power of yours of which so many people have written. Nothing has been exaggerated. The message which I have struggled to deliver to the world through my poetry, my plays, such prose as I have ventured upon, you yourself can tear from your heart and throw to the people's own ears. . . . Forgive me--I, too, will smoke. I will drink wine, also," he added, ringing the bell. "I had a dozen friends to help me, but every bone in my body aches with the struggle to escape. You maddened them, those people. It was magnificent." He ordered champagne from the attendant and began to smoke a long black cigar, nervously and quickly. "To-night I shall write of this," he went on. "I have lived for forty-five years and I have hunted all over the world, and in my study I have conjured up all the visions a man may, but never yet has there been anything like this. The black hillside a mass of soft black velvet, jewelled like a woman's gown, the red fires from the blasting furnaces, the shower of sparks from a thousand torches, the glow upon the fog poisoned sky, those faces--God, how white! Never in my life have I seen the writing of the finger of the Messiah as I saw it to-night! It has been the hour of a lifetime. Maraton, over there, man, our toilers are toilers indeed, but not like that. It isn't stamped into them. No, they're not branded." "Over there?" Maraton repeated. "Belgium, Germany," Selingman continued, "Germany chiefly. Our Socialism has done better for us than that. It has kindled a little fire in the heart of the men, and from its warmth has sprung something of that self-respect which will be the seed of the new humanity. I want you over there, Maraton. I want to show you. Your heart will warm with joy. God, what food for hell are your manufacturers here! How they'll burn!" "The curse of England is its terrible middle class," Maraton said slowly. "The present generation is the first even to dimly realise it. Our aristocracy is no better nor any worse than the aristocracy of other nations; rather better, perhaps, than worse. But our middle class rules the land. They represent the voting power. They conceal their real sentiments under the name of Liberalism, they keep their heel upon the neck of Labour. I tell you, when the revolution comes, it will be Hampstead and Kensington the mob will sack and burn, not Park Lane and Grosvenor Square."