A Lost Leader | Page 9

telegrams at once is a thing wholly unheard of here, Borrowdean. You
really ought not to have disturbed our postal service to such an extent."
Borrowdean smiled as he tore them open.
"I think," he said, "that I can guess their contents. Yes, I thought so.
Can you send me to the station, Mannering?"

"I can--if it is necessary," Mannering answered. "Must you really go?"
Borrowdean nodded.
"I must be in the House to-night," he said, a little wearily. "Rochester is
going for them again."
"You didn't take a pair?" Mannering asked.
"It isn't altogether that," Borrowdean answered, "though Heaven knows
we can't spare a single vote just now. Rochester wants me to speak. We
are a used-up lot, and no mistake. We want new blood, Mannering!"
"I trust that the next election," Mannering said, "may supply you with it.
Will you walk round to the stables with me? I must order a cart for
you."
"I shall be glad to," Borrowdean answered.
They walked side by side through the chestnut grove. Borrowdean laid
his hand upon his friend's arm.
"Mannering," he said, slowly, "am I to take it that you have spoken
your last word? I am to write my mission down a failure?"
"A failure without doubt, so far as regards its immediate object,"
Mannering assented. "For the rest, it has been very pleasant to see you
again, and I only wish that you could spare us a few more days."
Borrowdean shook his head.
"We are better apart just now, Mannering," he said, "for I tell you
frankly that I do not understand your present attitude towards life--your
entire absence of all sense of moral responsibility. Are you indeed
willing to be written down in history as a philanderer in great things, to
loiter in your flower gardens, whilst other men fight the battle of life
for you and your fellows? Persist in your refusal to help us, if you will,
Mannering, but before I go you shall at least hear the truth."

Mannering smiled.
"Be precise, my dear friend. I shall hear your view of the truth!"
"I do not accept the correction," Borrowdean answered, quickly. "There
are times when a man can make no mistake, and this is one of them.
You shall hear the truth from me this afternoon, and when your days
here have been spun out to their limit--your days of sybaritic
idleness--you shall hear it again, only it will be too late. You are
fighting against Nature, Mannering. You were born to rule, to be
master over men. You have that nameless gift of genius--power--the
gift of swaying the minds and hearts of your fellow men. Once you
accepted your destiny. Your feet were firmly planted upon the great
ladder. You could have climbed--where you would."
A curious quietness seemed to have crept over Mannering. When he
answered, his voice seemed to rise scarcely above a whisper.
"My friend," he said, "it was not worth while!"
Borrowdean was almost angry.
"Not worth while," he repeated, contemptuously. "Is it worth while,
then, to play golf, to linger in your flower gardens, to become a
dilettante student, to dream away your days in the idleness of a purely
enervating culture? What is it that I heard you yourself say once--that
life apart from one's fellows must always lack robustness. You have the
instincts of the creator, Mannering. You cannot stifle them. Some day
the cry of the world to its own children will find its echo in your heart,
and it may be too late. For sooner or later, my friend, the place of all
men on earth is filled."
For a moment that somewhat cynical restraint which seemed to divest
of enthusiasm Borrowdean's most earnest words, and which militated
somewhat against his reputation as a public speaker, seemed to have
fallen from him. Mannering, recognizing it, answered him gravely
enough, though with no less decision.

"If you are right, Borrowdean," he said, "the suffering will be mine.
Come, your time is short now. Perhaps you had better make your
adieux to my niece and Mrs. Handsell."
They all came out into the drive to see him start. A curious change had
come over the bright spring day. A grey sea-fog had drifted inland, the
sunlight was obscured, the larks were silent. Borrowdean shivered a
little as he turned up his coat-collar.
"So Nature has her little caprices, even--in paradise!" he remarked.
"It will blow over in an hour," Mannering said. "A breath of wind, and
the whole thing is gone."
Borrowdean's farewells were of the briefest. He made no further
allusion to the object of his visit. He departed as one who had been
paying an afternoon call more or less agreeable. Clara waved her hand
until he was out of sight, then she turned