God alone knows what the conscience can survive, or how a man
who has lost his honor will still try to save his soul."
There was another silence, and March sat staring at the table and
Fisher at the sea. Then Fisher suddenly sprang to his feet and
caught up his hat and stick with all his new alertness and even
pugnacity.
"Look here, old fellow," he cried, "let us make a bargain. Before
you open your campaign for Attwood come down and stay with us for
one week, to hear what we're really doing. I mean with the Faithful
Few, formerly known as the Old Gang, occasionally to be described as
the Low Lot. There are really only five of us that are quite fixed,
and organizing the national defense; and we're living like a
garrison in a sort of broken-down hotel in Kent. Come and see what
we're really doing and what there is to be done, and do us justice.
And after that, with unalterable love and affection for you, publish
and be damned."
Thus it came about that in the last week before war, when events
moved most rapidly, Harold March found himself one of a sort of
small house party of the people he was proposing to denounce. They
were living simply enough, for people with their tastes, in an old
brown-brick inn faced with ivy and surrounded by rather dismal
gardens.
Pages:
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235