The doors at the end of the room flew open, as if burst by a great
outcry penetrating from without, and a man appeared running up the
room--one of those men who bear news eternally, who catch the distant
clamour and carry it into quiet streets. Why did he disturb me? Did I
want to hear his news? I wanted to think of Churchill; to think of how
to explain.... The man was running up the room.

"I say ... I say, you beggars...."

I was beginning to wonder how it was that I felt such an absolute
conviction of being alone, and it was then, I believe, that in this
solitude that had descended upon my soul I seemed to see the shape of an
approaching Nemesis. It is permitted to no man to break with his past,
with the past of his kind, and to throw away the treasure of his future.
I began to suspect I had gained nothing; I began to understand that even
such a catastrophe was possible. I sat down in the nearest chair. Then
my fear passed away. The room was filling; it hummed with excited
voices. "Churchill! No better than the others," I heard somebody saying.
Two men had stopped talking. They were middle-aged, a little gray, and
ruddy. The face of one was angry, and of the other sad. "He wanted only
to be found out. What a fall in the mud." "No matter," said the other,
"one is made a little sad. He stood for everything I had been pinning my
faith to." They passed on. A brazen voice bellowed in the distance. "The
greatest fall of any minister that ever was." A tall, heavy journalist
in a white waistcoat was the centre of a group that turned slowly upon
itself, gathering bulk. "Done for--stood up to the last. I saw him get
into his brougham. The police had a job.... There's quite a riot down
there.... Pale as a ghost. Gurnard? Gurnard magnificent. Very cool and
in his best form. Threw them over without as much as a wink. Outraged