But as time went on, another way opened before Dick's eyes and was
cautiously and tentatively hinted at to his confidant, the Dean. The
Dean, having seen a little and heard much of Quisante, was inclined to be
encouraging. There were in him possibilities not to be found in
Marchmont. He was not fastidious, he would not trouble himself or other
people about ultimates, above all he could be fired with imagination.
Once that was achieved, he would speak and seem as though he were all
that the ideal leader ought to be, as though inspiration filled him; he
would express what Dick could only feel and the Dean do no more than
adumbrate; nay, in time, as he grew zealous in the cause, his
self-interest and personal ambition would be conquered, or at least would
be so blended and fused with the nobility of the cause as to lose any
grossness or meanness which might be thought to characterise them in an
uncompounded condition. All this might be achieved if only the great idea
could be made to seem great enough and the potentialities which lay in
its realisation invested with enough pomp and dignity.
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