"Will they remember," Selingman continued thoughtfully, "that you were the Samson who pulled down the pillars, or will they merely hail you as the deliverer? Will they think of that ghostly ride of yours on the locomotive, I wonder, when you tore screaming through the darkness, with the risk of a buffer on the line at every mile; stepped from the engine, grimy, with your breath sucked out of--you by the wind, and the roar of the locomotive still throbbing in your ears--stepped out to deliver your message to the waiting throngs? Magnificent! A subject worthy of me and my prose! I shall write of it, Maraton. I shall sing the glory of it in verse or script, when your fame as a politician of the moment has passed. You will live because of the garland that I shall weave." Maraton sipped his wine thoughtfully. "But for your overweening humility, Selingman," he began-- Selingman struck the table with his fist. "It is a night for rejoicings, this," he thundered. "I will not have my weaknesses exposed. Let us, for to-night, at any rate, see the best in each other. Glance, for instance, at Miss Julia. Admire the exquisite pink of my carnations which she has condescended to wear; see how well they become her." "I feel like a flower shop," Julia laughed. "And you look like the spirit of the flowers herself," Selingman declared, "the wonderful Power on the other side of the sun, who draws them out of the ground and touches their petals with colour, shakes perfume into their blossoms and makes this England of yours, in springtime, like a beautiful, sweet-smelling carpet." "Don't listen to him, Julia," Maraton warned her. "It was only a month ago that he told me that no civilised man should live in this country because of the women and the beer." "A man changes," Selingman insisted fiercely. "Your beer I will never drink, but Miss Julia knows that she hasn't in the world a slave so abject as I." Maraton rose to his feet. "I must go," he announced. "I have to talk with Mr. Foley for a few minutes. You had better come with me, Aaron. Selingman will see Julia back." They watched him depart. Julia sighed as he passed through the door. "I can read your thoughts," Selingman said quickly. "You are feeling, are you not, that to-night his leaving us has in it something allegorical. He was made for the storms of life, to fight in them and rejoice in them, and Fate has taken him by the hand and is leading him now towards the quieter places." "It is not his choice," Julia murmured. "It is destiny."