‘The main trouble,’ his companion broke in sharply, ‘is the fact that the priests and the anarchists and the socialists and every other sort of meddling malcontent keep things so stirred up that the government is forced into the stand it takes.’ Sybert whirled around from the window and faced him with black brows and a sudden flaring of passion in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, and then controlled himself and went on in a quiet, half-sneering tone— ‘I suppose the socialists and priests and the rest of your malcontents forced our late premier into office and kept him there. I suppose they yoked Italy with the Triple Alliance and drove the soldiers into Abyssinia to be butchered like hogs. I suppose they were at the bottom of the bank scandals, and put the charity money into official pockets, and let fifteen thousand peasants go mad with hunger last year—fifteen thousand!——’ His voice suddenly broke, and he half-turned away. ‘Good Lord, Melville, the poverty in Italy is something appalling!’ ‘Yes, I dare say it is—but, just the same, that’s only one side of the question. The country is new, and you can’t expect it to develop along every line at once. The government has committed some very natural blunders, but at the same time it has accomplished a vast amount of good. It has united a lot of chaotic states, with different traditions and different aims, into one organic whole; it has built up a modern nation, with all the machinery of modern civilization, in an incalculably short time. Of course the people have had to pay for it with a good many deprivations—in every great political change there are those who suffer; it’s inevitable. But the suffering is only temporary, and the good is permanent. You’ve been keeping your eyes so closely on passing events that you’re in danger of losing your perspective.’ Sybert shrugged his shoulders, with a quick resumption of his usual indifference.