"Thank God, _The Times_ managed to win clear of the syndicate's clutches when it did. There is moral and strength of purpose there now. I think the Press is behaving finely--if only the public can be made to do as well. But, oh, 'The Destroyers'--what a place they have cut out for themselves in history!" But for the glorious summer weather, one could have fancied Christmas at hand from the look of Ludgate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look up at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the evening sky. But between it and us was a seething crowd, promenading at the rate of a mile an hour, and served by two solid lines of vendors of useless trifles and fruit, and so forth. Crossing Ludgate Circus, as we fought our way to the steps of an omnibus, was a band of youths linked arm in arm, and all apparently intoxicated. There must have been forty in a line. As they advanced, cutting all sorts of curious capers, they bawled, in something like unison, the melancholy music-hall refrain: "They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs." The crowd caught up the jingle as fire licks up grass, and narrow Fleet Street echoed to the monstrous din of their singing. I began to feel anxious about getting Constance safely to her flat. Six out of the fourteen people on the top of our omnibus were noticeably and noisily tipsy. "Ah me, Dick, where, where is their British reserve? How I hate that beloved word cosmopolitan!" She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her of something. "Forgive my familiarity," she said. "John Crondall spoke of you as Dick Mordan. It's rather a way we have--out there." I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned me the friendly short name from her for the future; and, with England tumbling about our ears, for aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously happy. But it was none the less with a sigh of relief that I handed her in at the outer door of the mansions in which their flat was situated. We paused for a moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy we had known that evening, and the last, I thought, with a recollection of Mrs. Van Homrey waiting in the flat above. I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full to bursting. Perhaps the great news of that day affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I had no words, or very few. I remember I touched the sleeve of her dress with my finger-tips. What I said was: "You know I am--you know I am at your orders, don't you?" And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth, while the light of grave watching never flickered in her eyes. "Yes, Dick; and thank you!" she said, as we began to mount the stairs. Yet I was still the assistant editor of _The Mass_--Clement Blaine's right hand. XVI A PERSONAL REVELATION The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.