"You don't seem to understand," he answered, "it _is_ all over--the
whole thing. I ran Churchill and his conscious rectitude gang for all
they were worth.... Well, I liked them, I was a fool to give way to
pity.--But I did.--One grows weak among people like you. Of course I
knew that their day was over.... And it's all _over_," he said again
after a long pause.

"And what will you _do_?" I asked, half hysterically.

"I don't just know," he answered; "we've none of us gone under before.
There haven't been enough really to clash until she came."

The dead tranquillity of his manner was overwhelming; there was nothing
to be said. I was in the presence of a man who was not as I was, whose
standard of values, absolute to himself, was not to be measured by any
of mine.

"I suppose I shall cut my throat," he began again.

I noticed with impersonal astonishment that the length of my right side
was covered with the dust of a floor. In my restless motions I came
opposite the fireplace. Above it hung a number of tiny, jewelled frames,
containing daubs of an astonishing lewdness. The riddle grew painful.
What kind of a being could conceive this impossibly barbaric room, could
enshrine those impossibly crude designs, and then fold his hands? I
turned fiercely upon him. "But you are rich enough to enjoy life," I
said.

"What's that?" he asked wearily.