a clue to White. Benham's erratic movements, his sudden impulses,
his angers, his unaccountable patiences, his journeys to strange
places, and his lapses into what had seemed to be pure
adventurousness, could all be put into system with that. Before
White had turned over three pages of the great fascicle of
manuscript that was called Book Two, he had found the word "Bushido"
written with a particularly flourishing capital letter and twice
repeated. "That was inevitable," said White with the comforting
regret one feels for a friend's banalities. "And it dates . . .
[unreadable] this was early. . . ."

"Modern aristocracy, the new aristocracy," he read presently, "has
still to be discovered and understood. This is the necessary next
step for mankind. As far as possible I will discover and understand
it, and as far as I know it I will be it. This is the essential
disposition of my mind. God knows I have appetites and sloths and
habits and blindnesses, but so far as it is in my power to release
myself I will escape to this. . . ."



3


White sat far into the night and for several nights turning over
papers and rummaging in untidy drawers. Memories came back to him
of his dead friend and pieced themselves together with other
memories and joined on to scraps in this writing. Bold yet
convincing guesses began to leap across the gaps. A story shaped
itself. . . .