The girl had sat
with white, pained face, understanding little save that Lewis was
talking nonsense and losing all grip on his hearers. In spite of
herself she was contrasting this fiasco with the pithy words of Mr.
Stocks. When the meeting became unruly she looked for some display of
character, some proof of power. Mr. Stocks would have fiercely cowed
the opposition, or at least have spoken the last word in any quarrel.
Lewis's conduct was different. He shrugged his shoulders, made some
laughing remark to a friend on the platform, and with all the
nonchalance in the world asked the meeting if they wished to hear any
more. A claque of his supporters replied with feigned enthusiasm, but a
malcontent at Alice's side rose and stamped to the door. "I came to
hear sense," he cried, "and no this bairn's-blethers!"
The poor girl was in despair. She had fancied him a man of power and
ambition, a doer, a man of action. But he was no more than a creature
of words and sentiment, graceful manners, and an engaging appearance.
The despised Mr. Stocks was the real worker. She had laughed at his
incessant solemnity as the badge of a fool, and adored Lewis's
light-heartedness as the true air of the great. But she had been
mistaken. Things were what they seemed. The light-hearted was the
half-hearted, "the wandering dilettante," Mr. Stocks had called him,
"the worst type of the pseudo-culture of our universities.
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