His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping. 24 The war was a noisy guest. People shook hands with it. It sat down in their little rooms. It's voice was a brass band that drowned their troubles. Basine found a curious friend in the war. Changes had come to him in the days that followed the scene with Ruth. He grew cold. His heart was indifferent. His victory in the election had sent him to bed without joy. There was no longer an inner Basine and an outer Basine. He had fought his way into the current of events and he was content to let them move him. They made him Senator. They moved him to Washington, provided new scenes for him, new faces. He heard of his sister's collapse without sorrow. She had become crazy. To be expected, of course, to be expected, he said to himself one evening as he sat writing a letter of sympathy to his mother. The thing that had happened to Basine had been the result of a confusion. He found himself at forty robbed of life. Despair, hatred, disgust--these things were left. He turned his back on them. They were a company of emotions too difficult to play with. It was no longer possible to lie. Ruth, Schroder, Henrietta, love, hope, intrigue grew mixed up. He emerged from himself and walked away from himself like an aggrieved and dignified guest. He sometimes remembered himself--a distant Basine. A keen-faced one with the feel of leadership in his heart. A mind that was alive behind its words. He had done and thought many things. But now he had gone away. He was silent. The day was no longer a challenge. The change carried its reward. It seemed to bring him closer to people. At least he found a certain charm in talking and listening that had not existed before. He gave himself no thought. He was successful and that was enough. At times he sat in his new quarters in Washington reading stray items in the newspapers and reciting to himself his achievements. He found pleasing identification in the honors he had achieved. His political friends talked among themselves. They recalled that Basine had once been a man of promise, a man alive with energies. And now he was like the others in the party--an amiable fuddy-duddy. They recalled the sensational figure he had made a few years ago in the Vice Investigation. This seemed to have been the climax of Basine. But the war arrived and the new Senator began to emerge. The country became filled with mediocrities struggling to utilize the war as a pedestal. The call had gone out for heroes and the elocutionists rushed forward.