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he was capable of a belief that by sheer exertion of his voice, by
explaining and qualifying and restating, he might yet reconstitute his
power. He was puzzled and distressed no doubt, fatigued and suffering,
but if only he could keep up, if only he could keep talking--
As he talked he seemed to Redwood to advance and recede, to dilate and
contract. Redwood's share of the talk was of the most subsidiary sort,
wedges as it were suddenly thrust in. "That's all nonsense." "No." "It's
no use suggesting that." "Then why did you begin?"
It is doubtful if Caterham really heard him at all. Round such
interpolations Caterham's speech flowed indeed like some swift stream
about a rock. There this incredible man stood, on his official
hearthrug, talking, talking with enormous power and skill, talking as
though a pause in his talk, his explanations, his presentation of
standpoints and lights, of considerations and expedients, would permit
some antagonistic influence to leap into being--into vocal being, the
only being he could comprehend. There he stood amidst the slightly faded
splendours of that official room in which one man after another had
succumbed to the belief that a certain power of intervention was the
creative control of an empire....
The more he talked the more certain Redwood's sense of stupendous
futility grew. Did this man realise that while he stood and talked
there, the whole great world was moving, that the invincible tide of
growth flowed and flowed, that there were any hours but parliamentary
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