was taking prudent shape, preparing itself for the autocrat whose
outriders were multitudinously busy about their warnings of his approach.
Presently the scene would take on the natural beauty of our desire, but
the actual process of transformation rather depressed me that morning. I
had been so deeply in love with the night.

I took up my companion's last sentence--spoken, I fancied, with a
suggestion of brooding antagonism.

"You think the world might be 'run,' at least, more interestingly?" I put
in.

"More sensibly," he said in a voice that hinted a reserve of violence.
"There's no _sense_ in it, the way we look at things. Only we don't look
at 'em, most of us, not with any intelligence. We just take everything for
granted because we happen to be used to it, that's all."

"But would any form of socialism..." I tried tentatively.

"I don't know that I'm a socialist," he returned. "I don't belong to any
union, or anything of that kind." He stopped and looked at me with a
defiant stare that was quite visible now. "You know who I am, I suppose?"
he challenged me.

"No idea," I said.

"Banks, the chauffeur," he said, as if he were giving himself up as a
well-known criminal.

I was not entirely unprepared for that reply, but I had no tactful answer