"Then I really cannot see," she said, "what you are doing here."
"In the first place," she said, "you ought to be rushing about amongst your supporters, keeping them up to the mark, and all that sort of thing. And in the second--"
"Are we not the very people against whom you have declared war?"
"I have declared war against no people," he answered. "It is systems and classes, abuses, injustice against which I have been forced to speak. I would not deprive your Order of a single privilege to which they are justly entitled. But you must remember that I am a people's man. Their cause is mine. They look to me as their mouthpiece."
"You cannot evade the point," she said. "If you are the, what do you call it, the mouthpiece of the people, I do not see how you can be anything else than the enemy of the aristocracy."
"The aristocracy? Who are they?" he asked. "I am the enemy of all those who, because they possess an ancient name and inherited wealth, consider themselves the God-appointed bullies of the poor, dealing them out meagre charities, lordly patronage, an unspoken but bitter contempt. But the aristocracy of the earth are not of such as these. Your class are furnishing the world with advanced thinkers every year, every month! Inherited prejudices can never survive the next few generations. The fusion of classes must come."
"You are sanguine, my friend," she said. "Many generations have come and gone since the wonderful pages of history were opened to us. And during all these years how much nearer have the serf and the aristocrat come together? Nay, have they not rather drifted apart?... But listen! This is the great chorus. We must not miss it."
"So the Prince has brought back the wanderer," Lady Carey whispered to Mr. Sabin behind her fan. "Hasn't he rather the air of a sheep who has strayed from the fold?"
Mr. Sabin raised the horn eyeglass, which he so seldom used, and contemplated Brott steadily.
"He reminds me more than ever," he remarked, "of Rienzi. He is like a man torn asunder by great causes. They say that his speech at Glasgow was the triumph of a born orator."
"It was practically the preaching a revolution to the people," she said. "A few more such, and we might have the red flag waving. He left Glasgow in a ferment. If he really comes into power, what are we to expect?"