"Well, there you are," Williams went on. "The Chief's fed up. I can
talk to you here freely because I'm not an official person. Can you
discuss terms at all for a rapprochement?"

"Out of the question!"

"You mean that you are too much committed to Dartrey and the Democrats?"

"'Committed' to them is scarcely the correct way of putting it,"
Tallente objected. "Their principles are in the main my principles.
They stand for the cause I have championed all my life. Our alliance is
a natural, almost an automatic one."

"It's all very well, sir," Williams argued, "but Dartrey stands for a
Labour Party, pure and simple. You can't govern an Empire by parish
council methods."

"That is where the Democrats come in," Tallente pointed out. "They
have none of the narrower outlook of the Labour Party as you understand
it--of any of the late factions of the Labour Party, perhaps I should
say. The Democrats possess an international outlook. When they
legislate, every class will receive its proper consideration. No class
will be privileged. A man will be ranked according to his production."

Williams smiled with the faint cynicism of clairvoyant youth.

"Sounds a little Utopian, sir," he ventured. "What about Miller?"

"Well, what about him?"