Under the depression and gentle bewilderment, the everlasting business of inferior pursuing superior and superior increasing his superiority by resisting pursuit, was going on. The death of poor Gilchrist seemed to Basine, for a few minutes, chiefly important as an opportunity by which lesser mourners were introducing themselves to the attention of greater mourners. Basine's eyes noticed another undercurrent. He had himself influenced Fanny to prevail upon Mrs. Gilchrist to invite a number of politicians to the funeral. He had furnished the names carefully, telling Fanny that these were men high in power who had been friends of Mr. Gilchrist. The widow, through her secretary, had asked ten of the list to honor her husband's funeral with their presence. She had chosen ten names most familiar to her, among them men of wealth who were renowned as powers behind the various political thrones of the day. The invitations had served Basine to make a slight but important impression upon the political party leaders. He had at first felt nervous over Mrs. Gilchrist's selections from his list. She had picked ten men, most of whom were engaged in tenacious political antagonisms. He watched now with surprise as the antagonists gravitated together forming, with a number of financiers, an amiable, dignified group. "In the presence of death they feel inclined to bury the hatchet," he thought and the idea of large funerals as an asset for establishing political harmony developed in his mind. He noticed a change in his own attitude toward Aubrey. He had felt for years a distaste for the man and although their relations had always been amicable, this distaste had increased to a point where Basine would have felt a relief at the man's death. He could never tell himself why he disliked Aubrey. But the aversion was of long standing. "I don't like his looks," he would grin to himself. Now, watching him take his seat beside his mother, Aubrey became somehow human and Basine felt he understood the man for the first time. Beneath people whose looks you didn't like was always something human. People were all alike, no matter how they strutted or posed. Underneath was a loneliness--a little crippled likeness of themselves--that they carried about with them all the time. Basine would have liked to talk to him and say something like, "Sorry, old man. I didn't know. I'm sorry...." The minister had begun. He stood beside the coffin that had been brought in. His opening words startled Basine. A prayer! There was something fantastic in the spectacle of this living man standing beside the dead man and talking aloud to someone who was not in the room. Talking solemnly, intensely to God. As if he had buttonholed Him.