"Absolutely! That is why I telephoned for you. Horlock is quite resigned. I understand that they will send for me, but I wish to tell you, Miller, as I have just told Tallente, that I have finally made up my mind that it would not be in the best interests of our party for me to attempt to form a Ministry myself. I am therefore passing the task on to Tallente. Here is a list of what we propose." Miller clenched the sheet of paper in his hand without glancing at it. His tone was bellicose. "Do I understand that Tallente is to be Prime Minister?" "Certainly! You see I have put you down for the Home Office, Sargent as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Saunderson--" "I don't want to hear any more," Miller interrupted. "It's time we had this out. I object to Tallente being placed at the head of the party." "And why?" Dartrey asked coldly. "Because he is a newcomer and has done nothing to earn such a position," Miller declared; "because he has come to us as an opportunist, because there are others who have served the cause of the people for all the years of their life, who have a better claim; and because at heart, mind you, Dartrey, he isn't a people's man." "What do you mean by saying that I am not a people's man?" Tallente demanded. "Just what the words indicate," was the almost fierce reply. "You're Eton and Oxford, not board-school and apprentice. Your brain brings you to the cause of the people, not your heart. You aren't one of us and never could be. You're an aristocrat, and before we knew where we were, you'd be legislating for aristocrats. You'd try and sneak them into your Cabinet. It's their atmosphere you've been brought up in. It's with them you want to live. That's what I mean when I say that you're not a people's man, Tallente, and I defy any one to say that you are." "Miller," Dartrey intervened earnestly, "you are expounding a case from the narrowest point of view. You say that Tallente was born an aristocrat. That may or may not be true, but surely it makes his espousal of the people's cause all the more honest and convincing? For you to say that he is not a people's man, you who have heard his speeches in the house, who have read his pamphlets, who have followed, as you must have followed, his political career is sheer folly." "Then I am content to remain a fool," Miller rejoined. "Once and for all, I decline to serve under Tallente, and I warn you that if you put him forward, if you go so far, even, as to give him a seat in the Cabinet of the Government it is your job to form, you will disunite the party and bring calamity upon us." "Have you any further reason for your attitude," Tallente asked pointedly, "except those you have put forward?" Miller met his questioner's earnest gaze defiantly. "I have," he admitted. "State it now, then, please." Miller rose to his feet. He became a little oratorical, more than usually artificial.