is n't immoral, it simply is n't manners. And if Ferguson boasted to you that he was saved when so many went down, it was worse than bad manners. He ought to have been kicked for it. It's the kind of phenomenal luck that it would have been decent to regret.'

Havelock set his massive lips firmly together. You could not say that he pursed that Cyclopean mouth.

'Ferguson did not boast. He merely told me. He was, I think, a modest man.'

Incredulity beyond any power of laughter to express settled on Chantry's countenance. 'Modest? and he told you?'

"The whole thing.' Havelock's voice was heavy enough for tragedy. 'Listen. Don't interrupt me once. Ferguson told me that, when the explosion came, he looked round considered, for fully a minute, his duty. He never lost control of himself once, he said, and I believe him. The Argentina was a small boat, making a winter passage. There were very few cabin passengers. No second cabin, but plenty of steerage. She sailed, you remember, from Naples. He had been doing some work, some very important work, in the Aquarium. The only other person of consequence,

I am speaking in the most literal and un-snobbish sense, in the first cabin, was Benson. No' (with a lifted hand), 'don't interrupt me. Benson, as we all know, was an international figure. But Benson was getting old. His son could be trusted to carry on the House of Benson. In fact, every one suspected that the son had become more important than the old man. He had put through the last big loan while his father was taking a rest-cure in Italy. That is how Benson père happened to be on the Argentina. The newspapers never sufficiently accounted for that. A private deck on the Schrecklichkeit would have been more his size. Ferguson made it

out: the old man got wild, suddenly, at the notion of their putting anything through without him. He trusted his gouty bones to the Argentina.'

'Sounds plausible, but -' Chantry broke in.

'If you interrupt again,' said Havelock, 'I'll hit you, with all the strength I've got.'

Chantry grunted. You had to take Havelock the Dane as you found him.

or to you,

'Ferguson saw the whole thing clear. Old Benson had just gone into the smoking-room. Ferguson was on the deck outside his own stateroom. The only person on board who could possibly be considered as important as Ferguson was Benson; and he had good reason to believe that every one would get on well enough without Benson. He had just time, then, to put on a life-preserver, melt into his stateroom, and get a little pile of notes, very important ones, and drop into a boat. No, don't interrupt. I know what you are going to say. "Women and children." What do you suppose a lot of Neapolitan peasants meant to Ferguson and me, either? He did n't do anything outrageous; he just dropped into a boat. As a result, we had the big book a year later. No' (again crushing down a gesture of Chantry's), 'don't say anything about the instincts of a gentleman. If Ferguson had n't been perfectly cool, his instincts would have governed him. He would have dashed about trying to save people, and then met the waves with a noble gesture. He had time to be reasonable; not instinctive. world was the gainer, as he jolly well knew it would be- or where would have been the reasonableness? I don't believe Ferguson cared a hang about keeping his individual machine going for its own sake. But he knew he was a valuable person. His mind was a Kohinoor among minds. It stands to reason that you save the Kohinoor and let the

The

little stones go. Well, that's not the story. Only I wanted to get that out of the way first, or the story would n't have meant anything. Did you wish,' he finished graciously, 'to ask a question?'

Chantry made a violent gesture of denial. Ask a question about a hog like that? God forbid!'

'Um-m-m.' Havelock seemed to muse within himself. 'You will admit that if a jury of impartial men of sense could have sat, just then, on that slanting deck, they would have agreed that Ferguson's life was worth more to the world than all the rest of the boiling put together?'

'Yes, but-'

'Well, there wasn't any jury. Ferguson had to be it. I am perfectly sure that if there had been a super-Ferguson on board, our Ferguson would have turned his hand to saving him first. In fact, I honestly believe he was sorry there had n't been a super-Ferguson. For he had all the instincts of a gentleman; and it's never a pleasant job making your reason inhibit your instincts. You can't look at this thing perfectly straight, probably. But if you can't, who can? I don't happen to want an enlightened opinion: I've got one, right here at home. You don't care about the State: you want to put it into white petticoats and see it cross a muddy street.'

'I don't wonder the socialists won't have anything to do with you.'

'Because I'm not a feminist? I know. Just as the feminists won't have anything to do with you because you're so reactionary. We're both out of it. Fifty years ago, either of us could have been a real prophet, for the price of a hall and cleaning the rotten eggs off our clothes. Now we're too timid for any use. But this is a digression.'

'Distinctly. Is there anything more about Ferguson?'

'I should say there was. About a year ago, he became engaged. She's a very nice girl, and I am sure you never heard of her. The engagement was n't to be announced until just before the marriage, for family reasons of some sort-cockering the older generation somehow. I've forgotten; it's not important. But they would have been married by now, if Ferguson had n't stepped out.'

'You seem to have been very intimate with Ferguson.'

'He talked to me once - just once. The girl was a distant connection of my own. I think that was why. Now I've got some more things to tell you. I've let you interrupt a good lot, and if 're through, I'd like to start in on the next lap. It is n't easy for me to tell this thing in bits. It's an effort.'

you

Havelock the Dane set down his second emptied glass and drew a long breath. He proceeded, with quickened pace.

III

'He did n't see the girl very often. She lives at some little distance. He was busy, you know how he worked, and she was chained at home, more or less. Occasionally he slipped away for a week-end, to see her. One timethe last time, about two months ago - he managed to get in a whole week. It was as near happiness as Ferguson ever got, I imagine; for they were able to fix a date. Good heaven, how he loved that girl! Just before he went, he told me of the engagement. I barely knew her, but, as I said, she's some sort of kin. Then, after he came back, he sent for me to come and see him. I did n't like his cheek, but I went as though I had been a laboratory boy. I'm not like you. Ferguson always did get me. He wanted the greatest good of the greatest number. Nothing petty about him. He was a big man.

'I went, as I say. And Ferguson told me, the very first thing, that the engagement was off. He began by cocking his hair a good deal. But he almost lost control of himself. He did n't cock it long: he ruffled it instead, with his hands. I thought he was in a queer state, for he seemed to want to give me, with his beautiful scientific precision, as if he'd been preparing a slide, the details of a country walk he and she had taken the day before he left. It began with grade-crossings, and I simply could n't imagine what he was getting at. It was n't his business to fight grade-crossings-though they might be a very pretty symbol for the kind of thing he was fighting, tooth and nail, all the time. I could n't seem to see it, at first; but finally it came out. There was a grade-crossing, with a "Look out for the Engine" sign, and there was a towheaded infant in rags. They had noticed the infant before. It had bandy legs and granulated eyelids, and seemed to be dumb. It had started them off on eugenics. She was very keen on the subject; Ferguson, being a big scientist, had some reserves. It was a real argument.

'Then everything happened at once. Towhead with the sore eyes rocked onto the track simultaneously with the whistle. They were about fifty yards off. Ferguson sprinted back down the hill, the girl screaming pointlessly meanwhile. There was just timeyou'll have to take my word for this; Ferguson explained it all to me in the most meticulous detail, but I can't repeat that masterpiece of exposition for Ferguson to decide. To decide again, you understand, precisely as he had decided on the Argentina. Rotten luck, was n't it? He could just have flung towhead out of the way by getting under the engine himself. He grabbed for towhead, but he did n't roll onto the track. So towhead was killed. If

'I should say I did!' shouted Chantry. Twice in a man's life- good Lord! I hope you walked out of his house at that point.'

'I did n't. I was very much interested. And by the way, Chantry, if Ferguson had given his life for towhead, you would have been the first man to write a pleasant little article for some damned highbrow review, to prove that it was utterly wrong that Ferguson should have exchanged his life for that of a little Polish defective. I can even see you talking about the greatest good of the greatest number. You would have loved the paradox of it: the mistaken martyr, self-preservation the greatest altruism, and all the rest of it. But because Ferguson did exactly what you would have said in your article that he ought to have done, you are in a state of virtuous chill.'

'I should have written no such arti-. cle. I don't see how you can be so flippant.'

'Flippant - I? Have I the figure of a flippant man? Can't you see honestly, now, can't you see? - that it was a hideous misfortune for that situation to come to Ferguson twice? Can't you see that it was about as hard luck as a man ever had? Look at it just once from his point of view.'

'I can't,' said Chantry frankly. 'I can understand a man's being a coward, saving his own skin because he wants to. But to save his own skin on principle-humph! Talk of paradoxes: there's one for you. There's not a principle on earth that tells you to save your own life at some one's else expense. If he thought it was principle, he was the bigger defective of the two. Of

course it would have been a pity; of course we should all have regretted it; but there's not a human being in this town, high or low, who would n't have applauded, with whatever regret who wouldn't have said he did the only thing a self-respecting man could do. Of course it's a shame; but that is the only way the race has ever got on: by the strong, because they were strong, going under for the weak, because they were weak. Otherwise we'd all be living, to this day, in hell.'

'I know; I know.' Havelock's voice was touched with emotion. "That's the convention-invented by individualists, for individualists. All sorts of people would see it that way, still. But you've got more sense than most; and I will make you at least see the other point of view. Suppose Ferguson to have been a good Catholic or a soldier in the ranks. If his confessor or his commanding officer had told him to save his own skin, you'd consider Ferguson justified; you might even consider the priest or the officer justified. The one thing you can't stand is the man's giving himself those orders. But let's not argue over it now let's go back to the story. I'll make you "get" Ferguson, anyhow even if I can't make him "get" you. 'Well, here comes in the girl.' 'And you said there was no girl in it!' Chantry could not resist that. He believed that Havelock's assertion had been made only because he didn't want the girl in it-resented her being there. "There is n't, as I see it,' replied Havelock the Dane quietly. 'From my point of view, the story is over. Ferguson's decision: that is the whole thing -made more interesting, more valuable, because the repetition of the thing proves beyond a doubt that he acted on principle, not on impulse. If he had flung himself into the life-boat because he was a coward, he would have been

ashamed of it; and whatever he might have done afterwards, he would never have done that thing again. He would have been sensitive: not saving his own life would have turned into an obsession with him. But there is left, I admit, the murder. And murders always take the public. So I'll give you the murder - though it throws no light on Ferguson, who is the only thing in the whole accursed affair that really counts.'

"The murder? I don't see unless you mean the murdering of the towheaded child.'

'I mean the murder of Ferguson by the girl he loved.'

"You said "suicide" a little while ago,' panted Chantry.

"Technically, yes. She was a hundred miles away when it happened. But she did it just the same. Oh, I suppose I've got to tell you, as Ferguson told me.'

'Did he tell you he was going to kill himself?' Chantry's voice was sharp.

'He did not. Ferguson was n't a fool. But it was plain as day to me after it happened, that he had done it himself.' 'How

'I'm telling you this, am I not? Let me tell it, then. The thing happened in no time, of course. The girl got over screaming, and ran down to the track, frightened out of her wits. The train managed to stop, about twice its own length farther down, round a bend in the track, and the conductor and brakeman came running back. The mother came out of her hovel, carrying twins. The the thing was on the track, across the rails. It was a beastly mess, and Ferguson got the girl away; set her down to cry in a pasture, and then went back and helped out, and gave his testimony, and left money, a lot of it, with the mother, and all the rest. You can imagine it. No one there considered that Ferguson ought to have