the securing of small individual benefits for your individual
constituents. I think that if we get to work together in this country,
there must be something more national in our aspirations. That is all I
have to say for the present. As I think you know, I intend to make a
pronouncement of my own views at Manchester."

They all took their leave a little later. Maraton himself saw them out
and watched them across the Square. Somehow or other, his depression
had visibly increased as he turned away. He had come into contact
lately, on the other side of the world, with a different order of
person--men and women, too, passionately, strenuously in earnest. They
were well-fed, prosperous individuals, these whom he had just dismissed.
Their politics were their business, their position as Members of
Parliament a source of unmixed joy to all of them; hard-headed men, very
likely, good each in his own department; beyond that, nothing.

He returned presently to his study, where Aaron was already at work,
typing letters.

"So that is your committee of Labour Members," Maraton remarked,
throwing himself into an easy chair.

Aaron looked up.

"They are all sound men," he declared. "Peter Dale, too, is a fine
speaker."

Maraton sighed.

"Yet it isn't from them," he said quietly, "that I can take a mandate.