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deepening torrent of savagery below, and above ever more flimsy
gentility and silly wastefulness. He could see no redeeming reason, no
touch of honour, either in the life he had led or in this life to which
he had fallen. Civilisation presented itself as some catastrophic
product as little concerned with men--save as victims--as a cyclone or a
planetary collision. He, and therefore all mankind, seemed living
utterly in vain. His mind sought some strange expedients of escape, if
not for himself then at least for Elizabeth. But he meant them for
himself. What if he hunted up Mwres and told him of their disaster? It
came to him as an astonishing thing how utterly Mwres and Bindon had
passed out of his range. Where were they? What were they doing? From
that he passed to thoughts of utter dishonour. And finally, not arising
in any way out of this mental tumult, but ending it as dawn ends the
night, came the clear and obvious conclusion of the night before: the
conviction that he had to go through with things; that, apart from any
remoter view and quite sufficient for all his thought and energy, he had
to stand up and fight among his fellows and quit himself like a man.
The second night's instruction was perhaps less dreadful than the first;
and the third was even endurable, for Blunt dealt out some praise. The
fourth day Denton chanced upon the fact that the ferret-faced man was a
coward. There passed a fortnight of smouldering days and feverish
instruction at night; Blunt, with many blasphemies, testified that never
had he met so apt a pupil; and all night long Denton dreamt of kicks and
counters and gouges and cunning tricks. For all that time no further
outrages were attempted, for fear of Blunt; and then came the second
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