This sounded plausible enough. Dora’s ways were not as Evelyn’s, but that was perhaps a mere matter of temperament. And the glow of sacrifice burns with so white a flame that it illuminates even those trivial objects that it falls upon. "I’ll come," said Evelyn, sighing. "What time shall I be ready?" "We ought to be there at half-past nine," said Dora. "Will you be with us at nine-fifteen? Then we can have a talk first. By the way, you’d better take a cab, Evelyn, after all—you do live such an awfully long way out." "Thanks. Then you don’t think me an interfering old woman?" said Lady Wereminster. "I think you are very kind," said Farquharson courteously. His tone was final. He rose and held out his hand, and Lady Wereminster, who was known amongst her circle of intimate friends as "The Social Tyrant," meekly acquiesced and left him. "The man’s extraordinarily reassuring," she told herself as she drove away. "He says very little. But he’s a man of his word, and he’ll do as I want. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Evelyn. I didn’t dare even say I was sorry for him. And these are matters that the world would tell you you might not even pray about!" ... Farquharson, left mercifully alone, went back to the table in his study and sat down heavily. Blue Books, pamphlets, the records of his work lay all about him, in orderly piles; Farquharson was nothing if not scrupulously neat; his life lay there. Methodical, orderly, brilliant, complete—which adjective best described it? Yet in that moment it all seemed to him of little worth, little real value. After all, to have your name in men’s mouths for a season, what is it? Success and enmity go hand in hand; the man or woman who finds the highest is beset by a thousand treacheries and betrayals. The little bank clerk, with his hundred and fifty pounds a year, setting out to his work in the morning unnoticed, and unenvied, and returning to the woman he loves at the close of office hours, has a happier lot than the most important statesman in the empire. His small cup is full to the brim with wholesome wine and water; that of the other is mixed with vinegar and gall. What had Farquharson’s country done for him that he should work for it? It had given him a legacy of dishonour, it had torn his heritage from him. Why should he sow in blood, that the wastrel and incompetent should reap the fruit of his toil in ease? Why should he spend himself that England, who reared heroes only to spit upon them, should put him on that pedestal which had so often, of late years, turned to a pillory? And yet other men had braved and achieved so much more than he.