The same assurance greeted
him several times over. Every friend wanted to remind
him of the enemy's exigency, and to assure him that the
enemy's new policy was enough by itself to bring him
romping in at last; and to every assurance he presented
the same acceptable attitude of desiring for particular
reasons to take special note of such valuable views. At
the end he had neither elicited nor imparted a single
opinion of any importance; nevertheless, he was quite
entitled to his glow of satisfaction.
Among Mr Winter's qualifications for political life was
his capacity to arrive at an estimate of the position of
the enemy. He was never persuaded to his own advantage;
he never stepped ahead of the facts. It was one of the
things that made him popular with the other side, his
readiness to do justice to their equipment, to acknowledge
their chances. There is gratification of a special sort
in hearing your points of vantage confessed by the foe;
the vanity is soothed by his open admission that you are
worthy of his steel. It makes you a little less keen
somehow, about defeating him. It may be that Mr Winter
had an instinct for this, or perhaps he thought such
discourse more profitable, if less pleasant, than derisive
talk in the opposite sense. At all events, he gained
something and lost nothing by it, even in his own camp,
where swagger might be expected to breed admiration.
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