“Now,” he said slowly. “Now I see that you don’t have only to give all your possessions to the poor. You’ve got to _have_ no poor that can be saved just by possessions. You’ve got to put the control of all supplies into the hands of sincere, sensible men who are still men enough to know that manhood isn’t the same thing as goods. We don’t want possessions. Nobody wants possessions--more than just the immediate things: as you say yourself, one trunk for you, one for me, and one for the household goods. That’s about all. We don’t want anything else. And the world is ours--Australia or India, Coo-ee or Ardnaree, or where you like. You have got to teach people that, by withholding possessions and stopping the mere frenzy for possession which runs the world to-day. You’ve got to do that _first_, not last.” “And you think Jack Callcott will do it?” “I did think so, as he talked to me.” “Well, then let him. Why do you want to interfere. In my opinion he’s chiefly jealous because other people run the show, and he doesn’t have a look-in. Having once been a Captain with some power, he wants the same again, and more. I’d rather trust William James to be disinterested.” “Nay, Jack Callcott is generous by nature, and I believe he’d be disinterested.” “In his way, he’s generous. But that isn’t the same as being disinterested, for all that. He wants to have his finger in the pie, that’s what he wants.” “To pull out plums? That’s not true.” “Perhaps not to pull out money plums. But to be bossy. To be a Captain once more, feeling his feet and being a boss over something.” “Why shouldn’t he be?” “Why not? I don’t care if he bosses all Australia and New Zealand and all the lot. But I don’t see why you should call it disinterested. Because it isn’t.” He paused, struck. “Am I disinterested?” he asked. “Not”--she hesitated--“not when you want just _power_.” “But I don’t want just power. I only see that somebody must have power, so those should have it who don’t want it selfishly, and who have some natural gift for it, and some reverence for the sacredness of it.” “Ha!--power! power! What does it all mean, after all! And especially in people like Jack Callcott. Where does he see any sacredness. He’s a sentimentalist, and as you say yourself, nothing is sacred then.” This discussion ended in a draw. Harriet had struck home once or twice, and she knew it. That appeased her for the moment. But he stuck to his essential position, though he was not so sure of the circumstantial standing.