At this Hyacinth prostrated himself, tumbled over to the grass on his face, which he buried in his hands. He remained in this attitude, saying nothing, a long time; and while he lay there he thought, with a sudden, quick flood of association, of many strange things. Most of all he had the sense of the brilliant charming day; the warm stillness, touched with cries of amusement; the sweetness of loafing there in an interval of work with a chum who was a tremendously fine fellow even if he didn’t understand the inexpressible. Paul also kept the peace, and Hyacinth felt him all unaffectedly puzzled. He wanted now to relieve him, so that he pulled himself together again and turned round, saying the first thing he could think of, in relation to the general subject of their talk, that would carry them away from the personal question. “I’ve asked you before, and you’ve told me, but somehow I’ve never quite grasped it—so I just touch on the matter again—exactly what good you think it will do.” “The stroke of work, eh? Well, you must remember that as yet we know only very vaguely what it is. It’s difficult therefore to measure closely the importance it may have, and I don’t think I’ve ever, in talking with you, pretended to fix that importance. I don’t suppose it will matter immensely whether your own engagement’s carried out or not; but if it is it will have been a detail in a scheme of which the general effect will be decidedly useful. I believe, and you pretend to believe, though I’m not sure you do, in the advent of the democracy. It will help the democracy to get possession that the classes that keep them down shall be admonished from time to time that they’ve a very definite and very determined intention of doing so. An immense deal will depend upon that. Hoffendahl’s a jolly admonisher.” Hyacinth listened to this explanation with an expression of interest that was not feigned; and after a moment he returned: “When you say you believe in the democracy I take for granted you mean you positively wish for their coming into power, as I’ve always supposed. Now what I really have never understood is this—why you should desire to put forward a lot of people whom you regard almost without exception as rather dismal donkeys.” “Ah my dear lad,” Paul laughed, “when one undertakes to meddle in human affairs one must deal with human material. The upper classes have the longest ears.” “I’ve heard you say you were working for an equality in human conditions—to abolish the immemorial inequality. What you want then for all mankind is the selfsame shade of asininity.” “That’s very neat; did you pick it up in France? Damn the too-neat, you know; it’s as bad as the too-rotten. The low tone of our fellow-mortals is a result of bad conditions; it’s the conditions I want to alter. When those who have no start to speak of have a good one it’s but fair to infer they’ll go further. I want to try them, you know.”