The question was a spark to him. Gladly leaving the immediate question, he dilated on all that the coming contest meant to him, how victory would assure his prospects, how defeat might leave him hopelessly out in the cold, how it would be absurd to lose all that he was going to accomplish for the sake of a hasty promise and a cause that he had come to disbelieve in. "When did you come to disbelieve in it?" was the question in her heart; he saw it in her eyes.
"It's a little hard to have to explain everything in private as well as in public," he complained. "And my head's fit to split."
"Don't trouble any more about it; only I thought I'd better tell you what Dick said." She came to him as he lay back in his chair and put her hand on his brow. He was tired, not only looking tired; his head did ache, she had no doubt; to turn these afflictions to account had always been his way; so long ago as the Imperial League banquet she remembered it. "Go to bed," she said. "I'll write a few letters first."
"I want you to understand me," he said. He loved her and she had made him uneasy; her good opinion was very necessary to his happiness.
"I do understand you," she said, and persuaded him to go upstairs, while she sat down by the fire, forgetful apparently of the excuse that she had made for lingering.
Did she repent? That question came often into her mind. She well might, for one of the great hopes with which she had married was quite gone by now. There was no longer any possibility of maintaining that the faults were of manner only, no longer any reasonable expectation that she would be able to banish or materially to diminish them. It was for better for worse with a vengeance then. But did she repent? There were times when she wept, times when she shuddered, times when she scorned, even times when she hated. But had she ever so felt as to be confident that if Omnipotence had offered to undo the past, she would have had the past undone? There had perhaps been one such occasion quite early in the marriage, and the woe of it had been terrible; but it was followed almost immediately by a "moment," by an inspired outbreak of his over some case in the paper, by a vow to see an injustice remedied, a ceaseless, unsparing, unpaid month's work to that end, a triumph over wrong and prejudice in the cause of a helpless woman. He had nearly killed himself over it, the doctor said, and May had watched by his bed, without tears, but with a conviction that if he died she must die also; because it seemed as though he had faced death rather than her condemnation. That was not the truth of it, of course, but she and he between them had made it seem the truth to her.
And now, with all the meanness of this abandonment of his friends, with all this fawning on the moneyed Wesleyans before her eyes, she could not declare that she repented, lest he, waking again to greatness, should plunge her again into the depths of abasement. But that the same man should be great and mean, and should escape arraignment for his meanness by making play with his headache! She smiled now to remember how great the mere faults of manner had once seemed to her girlish fastidiousness; they were small to her now; her teeth were set on edge indeed, but by a sharper sourness than lay in them. To the faults of manner she had grown to some extent accustomed; she had become an adept in covering and excusing them. To-day, in her interview with Dick Benyon, she had turned alike art on to the other faults. A new thought and a new apprehension came into her mind.
"If I go on defending him," she murmured, "shall I end by getting like him and really think it all right? I wonder!" For it was difficult not to identify herself with her cause, and he was now her cause. Who asks a lawyer to disbelieve his own client, who asks a citizen to be extreme to mark what is done amiss in his country's quarrel?
"Now if the Dean did chance to do anything wrong, Mrs. Baxter simply wouldn't see that it was wrong," she meditated. "Neither would Amy Benyon, if Dick did. I see it's wrong and yet defend it. I'm the wrong sort of woman to have married Alexander."
Yes, from that point of view, undoubtedly. But there was another. What would Mrs. Baxter or Lady Richard have made of him at the times when he woke to greatness? Dick had appreciated him then; Dick's wife never had; she saw only the worst. Well, it was plain to see. May saw it so plain that night that she sat where she was till the night was old because, if she went upstairs, she might find him there. And she fell to wishing that the seat at Henstead was not shaky; so much hung on it, her hopes for him as well as his own hopes, her passionate interest in him as well as his ambition. Nay, she had a feeling or a fear that more still hung on it. Pondering there alone in the night, assessing her opinion and reviewing her knowledge of him, she told herself that there was hardly anything that he would not do sooner than lose the seat. So that she dreaded the struggle for the strain it might put on him; strains of that sort she knew now that he was not able to bear. "Lead us not into temptation," was the prayer which must be on her lips for him; if that were not answered, he was well-nigh past praying for altogether. For with temptation came his blindness, and he no longer saw the thing that tempted him for what it was. Oh, and what a fool she had been to think that she could make him see!
At last she went upstairs, slowly and reluctantly. Passing her own door, she mounted again to the baby's nursery, and entered softly. All was peace; both baby and nurse slept. May was smiling as she came down the stairs; she murmured, "Gaston!" mimicking the satisfied tones of old Aunt Maria's voice. Then she entered her own room; Quisanté's bed was empty. A sense of great relief rose in her, but she went out again and softly turned the handle of his dressing-room door. He had elected to sleep there, as he often did. The light was still high; a book lay open by him on the bed. He was in deep sleep, looking very pale, very tired, very peaceful. She stood looking at him for a moment; again she smiled as she stole forward and peeped at the book. It was a work on Bimetallism. Did he mean to win Henstead with that? Oh, no; he meant to preach the Majesty of the British Sovereign, King of coins, good tender from China to Peru. She imagined him making some fine rhetoric out of it.
He breathed gently and regularly; for once he rested, he really rested from his unresting efforts, from the cruel race he ran; he was for once free from all the thoughts of his brain, all the devices of his resourceful, unbaffled, unhesitating mind. With a sigh she turned away and lowered the light, that in darkness he might sleep more easily. In the darkness she stood a minute longer, seeing now only the dim outline of his body on the bed; again the smile came, but her lips moved to murmur softly, "Lead us not into temptation." And still murmuring the only prayer that might serve him, still smiling that it was the only prayer she could pray for her chosen husband, she left Quisanté to his rest.
PRACTICAL POLITICS.
While Alexander Quisanté increased in promise and prominence, Weston Marchmont had begun to cause some anxiety to his best friends. His passion for ultimates grew upon him; sometimes it seemed as though he would put up with nothing less. At the same time a personal fastidiousness and a social exclusiveness, always to a certain extent characteristic of the man, gathered greater dominion over him. He was not civil to the people towards whom civility would be useful, and he refused to shut his eyes to the logical defects or moral shortcomings in the measures promoted by his party. His abilities were still conceded in ample terms, his charm still handsomely and sincerely acknowledged. But a suspicion gradually got about that he was impracticable, that he had a perverse affection for unpopular causes, for reasons of approval or disapproval that did not occur to the world at large, for having a private point of view of his own, differentiated from the common view by distinctions as unyielding as to the ordinary eye they were minute. The man who begins merely by being uncompromising as to his own convictions may end in finding an actual pleasure in disagreeing with those of others. Some such development was, according to acute observers, taking place in Marchmont; if the tendency became his master, farewell to the high career to which he had appeared to be destined. Plain men would call him finicking, and practical men would think it impossible to work with him. No impression is more damning about a man engaged in public life; the Whips have to put a query to his name, and he cannot be trusted to confine his revolts to such occasions as those on which Mr. Foster of Henstead thought an exhibition of independence a venial sin, or in certain circumstances a prudent act.
"The fact is," Morewood said to Marchmont once, when they had been talking over his various positions and opinions, "if you want to lead ordinary people, you must keep on roads that ordinary people can travel, roads broad enough for the grande armée. You may take them quicker or slower, you may lead them downhill or get them to follow you uphill, but you must keep to the road. A bye-path is all right and charming for yourself, for a tête-à-tête, or a small party of friends, but you don't take an army-corps along it."
The unusual length and the oratorical character of this warning were strong evidence of the painter's feelings. Marchmont nodded a grave and troubled assent.
"Still if I see the thing one way, I can't act as if I saw it the other."
"You mustn't see it one way," said Morewood irritably. "If you must be the slave of your conscience, hang it, you needn't be of your intellect. Ask the Dean there." (The Dean, who had been drinking his port in thoughtful peace, started a little.) "He'll tell you that belief is largely or altogether—which is it?—an affair of the will."
The Dean was prudent; he smiled and finished his glass.
"If I chose to believe in the Crusade, I could," Morewood went on with a satirical smile. "Or with an adequate effort I could think Jimmy Benyon brilliant, or Fred Wentworth wise, or Alexander Quisanté honest. That's it, eh, Mr. Dean?"
"Well, the ordinary view may be appreciated, even if it's not entirely embraced," said the Dean diplomatically. "The points of agreement are usually much more important, for practice at all events, than those of difference."
"In fact—shut one eye and go ahead?" asked Marchmont.
"Oh, shut 'em both and walk by the sound of the feet and the cheering."
"Don't say more than you mean, Mr. Morewood," the Dean advised mildly.
"I know what he means," said Marchmont. "And, yes, I rather wish I could do it."
Morewood began to instance the great men who had done it, including in his list many whom the common opinion that he praised would not have characterised at all in the same way. At each name Marchmont denied either the greatness or the pliancy. The Dean could see with what ardour he maintained his position; in spite of the unvarying suavity of his manner there was something naturally repulsive to him in yielding a hair's breadth in deference to the wishes or the weaknesses of a majority.
"Your independence is really half a prejudice," said the Dean at the end. "You're like a man who can't get a cab and misses his appointment sooner than ride in a 'bus."
"I suppose so—and I'm much obliged to you. But—well, you can argue against what a man does, but what's the use arguing against what he is?"
"No; he himself's the only man who can do that," said the Dean, but he knew as well as Marchmont himself that such an argument would never be victorious. The will to change was wanting; Marchmont might deplore what he lost by being what he was, and at times he felt very sore about it; but as a matter of taste he liked himself just as he was, even as he liked the few people in whom he found some of the same flavour and the same bent of mind.
His character was knit consistently all through; whether he dealt with public affairs or ordered his own life the same line of conduct was followed. If he could not have things as he wanted them or do them as he chose, he would not have them or do them at all. He was not modifiable. For example, having failed to win May Gaston, he had no thought of trying for Fanny, and this not (as Lady Richard had thought likely) because he objected to any sort of connection with Quisanté; that point of view did not occur to him; it was merely because Fanny was not May, and May was what he had wanted and did want. Fanny he left to the gradual, uphill, but probably finally successful, wooing of Jimmy Benyon. Even with regard to May herself he very nearly achieved consistency. His promise to be often at Quisanté's house had been flagrantly and conspicuously broken. Quisanté had pressed him often; on the three occasions on which he had called May had let him see how gladly she would welcome him more often. He had not gone more often. He was not sulking, for his temper was not touched; but he held aloof because it was not to his taste to go under existing circumstances. He knew that he gave pain to her and regretted the pain, but he could not go, any more than he could give a vote because his good friend Constantine Blair, the Whip, was very much put out when he wouldn't. "He wants a party all to himself," said Constantine angrily. "And then I'm hanged if he'd vote with it!"
Some of the things here indicated May Quisanté read about him in the papers, some Quisanté brought home from the House, some she heard from friends or divined for herself; and her heart went out to Marchmont under the cunning lure of contrast. The Dissolution drew near now, and political conferences, schemes, and manœuvres were the order of the day in Grosvenor Road and in many other houses which she frequented. Perhaps she exaggerated what she disliked, but it seemed to her that everybody, her husband of course among the first, was carefully considering how many of his previous utterances and how much of his existing opinions he might conveniently, and could plausibly, disclaim and suppress, and on the other hand to what extent it might be expedient, and would not be too startling, to copy and advocate utterances and opinions which were in apparent conflict therewith. This, she was told, was practical politics. Hence her impulse of longing to renew friendship and intimacy with a man who was dubbed unpractical. The change would be pleasant, and, if she found something to laugh at, she would find something to admire, just as if in the practical politicians she found something to frown at, she contrived to find also much matter for legitimate mirth. She had begun by thinking that a gift of humour would make her married life harder; she was conscious now that without that form of insight it would be utterly intolerable.
"I hear you're behaving very badly," she said to Marchmont, when he came in obedience to her invitation. "I was talking to Mr. Blair about you, and he had no words strong enough to denounce you in."
"Yes, it's atrocious. I'm thinking for myself," he said with a shrug, as he sat down.
"For yourself instead of about yourself! With a dissolution coming too!"
"Oh, I'm safe enough. I'm a martyr without a stake."
"Well, really, you're refreshing. I wish we were safe, and hadn't got to make ourselves safe; I don't think it's a very elevating process." She paused a moment and then added, "I ought to apologise for bringing you into such an atmosphere of it. We conspire here like Fenians or Women Suffragists, and I know how much you hate it all."
"And you?" he asked briefly.
"Oh, yes, as the clerk hates his desk or a girl her practising. The duties of life, you know."
She had received him in an exuberance of spirits, much as though she were the school-girl she spoke of and he a pleasant visitor from the outside world. When she reproached him for not having come before, it was only evidence of her pleasure that he had come now; in the days when he saw her often and was always at her call, there had been no such joy as this. Yet he had hesitated to add one more item to the score of simple perversity, of not wanting when you can have and vice versâ; what she said about the atmosphere she lived in showed him that his hesitation had been right.
"And I know you didn't want to come," she went on. "You've only come out of politeness, no, I mean out of kindness."
"There was an old invitation. An old promise too? Wasn't there?"
"One never withdrawn, the other terribly broken," she laughed. "You've heard of our difference with poor Dick Benyon?"
"Of your husband's?" May smiled slightly. "Yes, I have. Quisanté's quite right now, you know; the only pity is that he didn't see it sooner."
"Dick's not so charitable as you. He suspects our sincerity."
It was on the tip of his tongue to say again "Your husband's?" but looking at her he found her eyes full of fun, and began to laugh himself.
"I find it absolutely the only way," May explained. "I can't draw distinctions. Mrs. Baxter, now, says 'Our Cathedral' but 'My drawing-room.' Amy Benyon says 'Our relations,' when she means hers and 'Dick's relations' when she means his. I've quite given up the attempt to discriminate; a thorough-going identification of husband and wife is the only thing. The We matrimonial must be as universal as the We editorial."
"The theory is far-reaching, if you apply it to qualities."
"Yes, I don't quite know how far."
"Alliance becomes union, and union leads to fusion?"
"And fusion leads where?"
He escaped answering or covered inability to answer with a shrug.
"I'm sorry you don't please Mr. Blair," she said.
"Really I don't think I care so very much. I used to be ambitious, but——"
"Oh, don't tell me it's not worth while being ambitious. It's all I've got."
She had spoken on a hasty unthinking impulse; she grew a little red and laughed rather nervously when she found what she had said. His face did not change, his voice was quite unmoved, as he said, smiling, "In that case, no doubt, it is worth while."
She wanted to applaud his excellent manners; at the same time they annoyed her rather. She had been indiscreet no doubt, but her indiscretion might, if he had liked, have led the way to matters of interest, to that opening of the heart to somebody for which she was pining. His polite care not to embarrass her shut the door.
"I mean, just now," she resumed, "while our seat's so shaky, you know."
"Ah, yes," said he half-absently.
She leant back in her chair and looked at him.
"I think," she said, "you look as if you did care, about Mr. Blair or about something else. I wanted to tell you that I don't agree in the least with the criticisms on you." She leant forward, asking in a lower voice, "Do they hurt you?"
"Not much. A man likes to succeed, but there are things I like better."
"Yes. Well, there's nothing we—we—like better, Mr. Marchmont."
He rose and stood on the hearth; her eyes were upturned to his in a steady gaze.
"You were always very frank, weren't you?" he asked, looking down and smiling. "Well, you've known what you say for a long while, haven't you?"
"Oh, yes, even before—Oh, ever since the very beginning, you know. There now! We've left 'We' and got to 'I,' and whenever that happens I say something I oughtn't to. But one must sometimes. I believe I could serve anybody to the death if only I were allowed to speak my whole mind about him once a week. But it's disloyal, I suppose."
"Well, I suppose it is."
She laughed. "That's what Mr. Blair means," she said. "You must have seen that I wanted you to say 'No, it isn't.' Perhaps you would have to anybody else. You were always one of the people who attributed all the virtues to me. You made it so hard for me to be good. I loathed the girl you thought I was. One comfort is that as I am now——". Suddenly her eyes met his; she stopped. "We'd better talk about 'we' again," she ended with a laugh.
"Whom do you talk to?" he asked curiously.
"About 'we'? I talk to Miss Quisanté—You've met her? She's never tired of talking about 'we'—though she doesn't like us; but she doesn't care a bit to talk about me."
"Have a confidante," he suggested gravely.
"Yes—like Tilburina. Who shall I have?"
A run through their acquaintance suggested only Mrs. Gellatly, and her May rejected as being too suitable, too much the traditional confidante. "I should like one who might possibly have something to tell me in return, and she never could," she said.
They were interrupted by the arrival of the man of whom they had spoken, Constantine Blair. He came with important and, as he clearly considered, disquieting news for Quisanté. Sir Winterton Mildmay, one of the richest landowners near Henstead, who had been at loggerheads with his party, had made up the quarrel and consented to stand in opposition to Quisanté. "I thought the sooner your husband knew the better," said Constantine with a very grave face. "It makes a difference, you see. We only beat young Fortescue, a stranger in the town, by two hundred, and they had four hundred the time before." He paused and added, "Lady Mildmay's very much liked in the town."
"Come, Blair, I'm sure we shan't be worse off in that respect anyhow," said Marchmont, laughing.
"Oh, I've nothing to do with you, I've given you up," cried Blair, twisting his good-humoured face into a fierce scowl. "He's a man with convictions, Lady May; he's no sort of use to me."
Blair had convictions himself, but he and everybody else took them so much for granted that they might almost as well not have existed; they were polite convictions too, ready to give place not only to one another but even to circumstances, and waiting quite patiently their turn to be realised. He expected to be met in a like spirit, conceiving that the true function of a man's own opinions is to decide which party he shall belong to; with that decision their duty was ended. He possessed an extremely cordial manner, dressed perfectly, and never forgot anybody. He enjoyed his work immensely, quarrelling with nothing in it save that it often prevented him from being present at the first performances of new plays. May thought him pleasant, but did not welcome his appearance to-day; he smacked too strongly of those politics distinctively practical from which her talk with Marchmont had afforded a temporary escape.
"I know Mildmay," said Marchmont. "He's a capital fellow and, I should think, very popular. He'll give you a bit of a run."
"From what I hear he'll run us very close indeed," said Blair with an anxious look. "However I've unlimited confidence in your husband, Lady May. If Mildmay is to be beaten Quisanté'll beat him; if there is a weak spot he'll find it out."
May smiled faintly; what Blair said was so true.
"Perhaps," smiled Marchmont, "you'll be able to ferret out something about him."
May turned to him and said with a touch of sharpness, "We shall fight fairly anyhow, I hope." She saw that she surprised him and went on with a laugh, "You shouldn't talk as if we were going to set detectives on him and use their information for electioneering."
"Well, hardly," said Constantine Blair. "Still, mind you, a constituency has a right to know that its member is an honourable and equitable man as well as a supporter of the principles it favours."
"Excellently well put, Blair," said Marchmont languidly. "Is it your own?"
"No!" said May, with a sudden laugh. "I believe it's my husband's."
Blair looked a little put out, but his good-humour triumphed. "I'm not above borrowing from my betters," he said. "Quisanté did say something of the sort to me, but how in the world did you know? Has he said it to you?"
"Oh, no; I knew by—oh, just by the subtle sympathy that exists between husband and wife, Mr. Blair." She laughed again and glanced at Marchmont. "Sir Winterton must look out for the detectives, mustn't he?" she ended.
Marchmont saw, though Blair did not, that she jested uneasily and reaped no pleasure, although she reaped amusement, from her clever recognition of her husband's style. She had spoken in much the same tone about the difference with Dick Benyon and the suspicions which Dick cast on "our sincerity." He came near to perceiving and understanding what was in her mind—what had been there as she watched Quisanté sleeping. The first suggestion of ferreting out something had come from him, purely in the way of a cynical jeer, just because nobody would ever suspect him of seriously contemplating or taking part in such a thing. Well, May Quisanté did not apparently feel quite so confident about her husband.
Blair bustled off, with a parting mysterious hint that they must lose no time in preparing for the fray—it might begin any week now—and May's face relaxed into a more genuine smile.
"He does enjoy it so," she explained. But Marchmont was not thinking of Blair. He asked her abruptly,
"You'll go to Henstead and help him, I suppose?"
"Of course. I shall be with him right through. He'll want all the help I can give him. It's everything to him to win this time."
"Yes, I know." Her voice had become troubled again; she was very anxious for her husband's success; but was she anxious about something else too? "If I can help you, let me," he said as he rose to go.
She gave him her hand and looked in his face.
"I'm afraid that most likely I shouldn't be able to ask you," she said gravely. The answer, as she gave it, meant so much to him, and even seemed to admit so much, that he wondered at once at her insight into his thoughts and at her frankness in facing what she found there. For did she not in truth mean that she might want help most on some occasion when the loyalty he had himself approved would forbid her to reveal her distress to him or to seek his succour? He ventured, after an instant's hesitation, on one word.
"After all," he said, "you can't trundle the world's wheelbarrow in white kid gloves; at least you soil them."
"Then why trundle it?" she asked. "At any rate you needn't say that sort of thing. Leave that to Mr. Blair."
Not only was the time when everybody had to be bestirring themselves approaching rapidly, but the appearance of Sir Winterton Mildmay in the list quickened the Quisantés' departure for the scene of action. Rooms were taken at the Bull in Henstead, an election agent appointed, resources calculated—this involved a visit to Aunt Maria—and matters got into fighting trim. During this period May had again full cause to thank her power of humour; it almost scattered the gloomy and (as she told herself) fanciful apprehensions which had gathered round, and allowed her to study with amusement her husband's preparations. He talked very freely to her always about his political views, and now he consulted her on the very important question of his Election Address. He reminded her of a man packing his portmanteau for a trip and not quite knowing what he would want, whether (for example) shooting boots would come in useful, or warm underclothing be essential. Space was limited, needs difficult to foresee, climate very uncertain. Some things were obviously necessary, such as the cry on which the Government was going to the country; others were sure to be serviceable; in went "something for Labour" (she gathered the phrase from Quisanté's rough notes); odd corners held little pet articles of the owner's things which he had found unexpectedly useful on a previous journey, or which might seem especially adapted to the part of the world he was going to visit. On the local requirements Mr. Foster the maltster was a very Baedeker. With constant effort on Quisanté's part, with almost unfailing amusement on his wife's, the portmanteau got itself filled.
"Are you sure there's nothing else, Alexander?" she asked.
"I think I've got everything that's of real service," said he. "I don't want to overload it."
Of course not; excess luggage may be very expensive. May was smiling as she handed back the Address.
"It's extraordinarily clever," she remarked. "You are extraordinarily clever, you know."
"There's nothing in it that isn't pretty obvious," said he, though he was well pleased.
"Oh, to you, yes, obvious to you; that's just it," she said.
But amongst all that was in the portmanteau there was nothing that could be construed into a friendly word for the Crusade; and were not the anxious minds of the Henstead Wesleyans meant to read a disclaimer of that great movement in a reference to "the laudable and growing activity of all religious denominations, each within the sphere of its own action"? Quisanté had put in "legitimate" before "sphere," but crossed it out again; the hint was plain enough without, and a superfluous word is a word too much. "Sphere," implies limitations; the Crusade had negatived them. This significant passage in the Address was fresh in May's mind when, a day or two later, her husband came in, fretful and out of humour. He flung a note down on the table, saying in a puzzled tone,
"I can't think what's come over Dick Benyon. You know my fight'll be over before his is half-way through, and I wrote offering to go and make a couple of speeches for him. He writes back to say that under existing circumstances he thinks it'll be better for him not to trouble me. Read his note; it's very stiff and distant."
"Can you wonder?" was what rose to her lips. She did not put the question. The odd thing was that most undoubtedly he could wonder and did wonder, that he did not understand why Dick should be aggrieved nor, probably, why, even though he chose to be aggrieved, he should therefore decline assistance of unquestionable value.
"Well, there'll be a lot of people glad to have me," said Quisanté in resentful peevishness. "And I daresay, if I have a big win, he'll change his mind. I shall be worth having then."
"I don't think that would make any difference to Dick," she said.
She spoke lightly, her tone was void of all offence, but Quisanté left the room, frowning and vexed. She had seemed to rebuke him and to accuse him of not seeing or not understanding something that was plain to her. He had become very sensitive on this point. Left to himself, he had been a self-contented man, quite clear about what he meant to do, troubling very little about what he was, quite confident that he could reason from his own mind to the mind of his acquaintances with absolute safety. When he fell in love with May Gaston, however, part of her attraction for him had lain in his sense of a difference between them, of her grasp on things and on aspects of things which eluded him; in this mood he had been prepared to worship, to learn, to amend. These things for a little while he had done or attempted, and had been met by zealous efforts to the same end on her part. His great moments had been frequent then, and May had felt that the risky work she had undertaken might prosper and at last be crowned with success. As for some months back this idea of hers had been dying, even so Quisanté's humble mood died. Now his suspicious vanity saw blame of what he was, or even contempt of him, in every word by which she might seem to invite him to become anything different. Though she had declared herself on his side by the most vital action of her life, he imputed to her a leaning towards treachery; her heart was more with his critics than with him. Yet he did not become indifferent to her praise or her blame, but rather grew morbidly sensitive and exacting, intolerant of questioning and disliking even a smile. He loved her, depended on her, and valued her opinion; but she became in a certain sense, if not an enemy, yet a person to be conciliated, to be hoodwinked, to be tricked into a favourable view. Hence there crept into his bearing towards her just that laboured insincerity which she had never ceased to blame in his attitude towards the world at large. He showed her the truth about himself now only as it were by accident, only when he failed to perceive that the truth would not be to her liking. But this was often, and every time it happened it seemed to him as well as to her at once to widen the gulf between them and to move further away any artificial means of crossing it. Thus the new sense of self-dissatisfaction and self-distrust which had grown upon him centred round his wife and seemed to owe its origin to her.
On her side there came a sort of settled, resigned, not altogether unhumorous, despair. She saw that she had over-rated her power alike over him and over herself. She could not change what she hated in him, and she could not cease to hate it. She could neither make the normal level higher nor yet bear patiently with the normal lower level; the great moments would not become perpetual and the small moments grew more irritating and more humiliating. But the great moments recurred from time to time and never lost their charm. Thus she oscillated between the moods produced by an intense intellectual admiration on the one hand and an intense antipathy of the feelings on the other; and in this uncomfortable balancing she had the prospect of spending her life. Well, Aunt Maria had lived in it for years, and Aunt Maria could not be called an unhappy woman. If only Quisanté would not do anything too outrageous, she felt that she would be able to endure. Since she could not change, she must be content to compromise, to ignore—if only he would not drive her from that refuge too.
"I suppose she sees what the man is by now," said Lady Richard to Morewood, whom she had been trying to entice into sympathising with her over the scandalous treatment of the Crusade.
"My dear Lady Richard, she always saw what he is much better than you do, even better than I do. But it's one thing to see what a man is and quite another to see what effect his being it will have on yourself from time to time."
"What he's done about Dick and the Dean is so characteristic."
"For example," Morewood pursued, "you know what a bore is, but at one time he kills you, at another he faintly amuses you. You know what a Dean is" (he raised his voice so as to let the Dean, who was reading in the window, overhear); "at one time the abuse exasperates you, at another such splendid indifference to the progress of thought catches your fancy. No doubt Lady May experiences the same varieties of feeling towards her worthy husband."
"Well, I've done with him," said little Lady Richard. Morewood laughed.
"The rest of us haven't," he said, "and I don't think we ever shall till the fellow dies somehow effectively."
"What a blessing for poor May!" cried Lady Richard impulsively.
Morewood was a long while answering; even in the end what he said could not be called an answer. But he annoyed Lady Richard by shaking his finger at her and observing,
"Ah, there you raise a very interesting question."
"Very," agreed the Dean from the window seat.
"I didn't know you were listening," said Lady Richard, wheeling round.
"I always listen about Mr. Quisanté."
"Exactly!" exclaimed Morewood. "I told you so!" But Lady Richard did not even pretend to understand his exultation or what he meant. Whatever he had happened to mean about poor May, the Dean was not Alexander Quisanté's wife.
SEVENTY-SEVEN AND SUSY SINNETT.
The course of events gave to the Henstead election an importance which seemed rather adventitious to people not Henstead-born. It occurred among the earliest; the cry was on its trial. Quisanté was a prominent champion, his opponent commanded great influence, and the seat had always been what Constantine Blair used to call "pivotal," and less diplomatic tongues "wobbly." Such materials for conspicuousness were sure to lose nothing in the hands of Quisanté. The consciousness that he fought a larger than merely local fight, on a platform broader than parochial, under more eyes than gazed at him from the floor of the Corn-Exchange, was the spur he needed to urge him to supreme effort and rouse him to moments of inspiration. Add to this the feeling that his own career was at its crisis. Even Fanny Gaston, who rather unwillingly accompanied her sister to the Bull, was in twenty-four hours caught by the spirit of combat and acknowledged that Quisanté was a fine leader of a battle, however much he left to be desired as a brother-in-law. She flung herself into the fight with unstinted zeal, and was rewarded by Quisanté's conviction that he had at last entirely overcome her dislike of him.
"He's really splendid in his own way," she wrote to Jimmy Benyon—by now they had come to corresponding occasionally—"and I think that you anyhow—I don't ask Dick, who's got a fight of his own—might come and give him some help. People know how much you did for him, and it looks rather odd that you should neither of you be here." So Jimmy, after a struggle, packed up, and gave and received a reciprocal shock of surprise when he got into the same railway carriage as the Dean and Mrs. Baxter.
"What, are you going too?" cried Jimmy.
Mrs. Baxter explained that they were not going to join Mr. Quisanté; indeed they were bound for the opposite camp, being on their way to stay with the Mildmays. The Dean added that his presence had no political significance; the Mildmays were old friends, and the visit quite unconnected with the election. "Although," the Dean added, "I shall find it interesting to watch the fight." His manner indicated that his sympathies were divided. Jimmy hastened to explain his presence.
"I'm only going because of May and Fanny. I don't care a straw about Quisanté," he said, "although I'm loyal to the party, of course."
"I'm not a party man," observed the Dean. How should he be, when both parties contemptuously showed his dear Crusade the door?
"I want Sir Winterton to win," said Mrs. Baxter with mild firmness.
"Oh, I say!" murmured Jimmy, who was very ready to be made to feel uncomfortable. "Come now, why, Mrs. Baxter?"
Mrs. Baxter shook her head, and went on knitting the stocking which on journeys took the place of the wonted petticoat.
"My wife's taken a prejudice against Mr. Quisanté," the Dean explained apologetically.
"A prejudice!" said Mrs. Baxter with a patient withering smile; she implied that her husband would be calling religion and the virtues prejudices next.
"There's nothing particularly wrong with him," Jimmy protested weakly.
"There's nothing particularly right with him, Lord James. He's just like that coachman of the Girdlestones'; he never told the truth and never cleaned his harness, but, bless you, there was always a good reason for it. What became of the man, Dan?"
"I don't know, my dear."
"I remember. They had to get rid of him, and the Canon got him made night-watchman at the Institute. However, as I say, I called him Mr. Reasons, and that's what I call Alexander Quisanté. Poor girl!" The last words referred, by a somewhat abrupt transition, to Quisanté's wife.
The Dean smiled rather uneasily at Jimmy Benyon; Mrs. Baxter detected the smile, but was not disturbed. She shook her head again, saying,
"Sir Winterton you can trust, but if I were he I'd keep a sharp eye on all you Quisanté people."
"I say, hang it all!" moaned Jimmy Benyon. But his protest could not soften the old lady's convinced hostility. "You ask his aunt," she ended vindictively, and Jimmy was too timid to suggest that enquiries in such a quarter were not the usual way of forming a judgment on rising statesmen.
Moreover he had no opportunity, for Miss Quisanté did not come to Henstead; her explanation showed the mixture of malice and devotion which was her usual attitude towards Sandro.
"I'd give my ears to come," she had told May, "to see the fun and hear Sandro. But I'm old and ugly and scrubby, and Sandro won't want me. I'm not a swell like you and your sister. I should do him harm, not good. He'd be ashamed of me—oh, that'd only amuse me. But I'd best not come. Write to me, my dear, and send me all his speeches."
"I wish you'd come. I want you to talk to," May said.
"Talk to your sister!" jeered Aunt Maria; it was nothing less than a jeer, for she knew very well that May could not and would not talk to Fanny.
One thing the Quisanté people (as Mrs. Baxter called them) found out before they had been long in Henstead, and this was the important and delicate nature of anything and everything that touched or affected Mr. Japhet Williams. Something of this had been foreshadowed by Mr. Foster's account of his friend, but the reality went far beyond. Japhet was a small fretful-faced man; he was rich, liberal, and kind, but he plumed himself on a scrupulous conscience and was the slave of a trifle-ridden mind. As a member of a party, then, he was hard to work with, harder even than Weston Marchmont, of whom he seemed sometimes to May to be a reduced and travestied copy. Not a speech could be made, not a bill issued, but Japhet Williams flew round to the Committee Room with an objection to urge and a hole to pick. There he would find large, stout, shrewd old Foster, installed in an arm-chair and ready with native diplomacy, or Quisanté himself, earning Mrs. Baxter's nickname of "Mr. Reasons" by the suave volubility of his explanations. May laughed at such scenes half-a-dozen times in the first week of her stay at Henstead.
"Is he so very important to us?" she asked of Foster.
He answered her in a whisper behind a fat hand,
"His house is only a couple of miles from Sir Winterton's, and Lady Mildmay's been civil. He employs a matter of two hundred men up at the mills yonder."
"The position's very critical, isn't it, then?"
"So your good husband seems to think," said Foster, jerking his thumb towards where Quisanté leant over Japhet's shoulder, almost caressing him, and ingeniously justifying the statistics of an electioneering placard. May's eyes followed the direction of the jerk. She sighed.
"Yes, it's a waste of Mr. Quisanté's time, but we can't help that," Foster sighed responsively. It was not, however, of Quisanté's time that his wife had been thinking.
Japhet rose. Quisanté took his hand, shook it, and held it.
"Now you're satisfied, really satisfied, Mr. Williams?" he asked. "I give you my word that what I've said is absolutely accurate."
"What that placard says, sir?"
"Yes, yes, certainly—what the placard says. It doesn't give the details and explanations, of course, but the results are accurately stated."
"I'm much relieved to hear it, much relieved," said Japhet.
He left them; Foster sat down again, smiling. May had come to drive her husband to a meeting and waited his leisure. He came across to Foster, holding the suspected placard in his hand.
"Smoothed him down this time, sir?" asked Foster cheerily.
"Yes," answered Quisanté, passing his hand over his smooth hair. "I think, Mr. Foster, we won't have any more of this Number 77. Make a note of that, will you?"
"No more of 77," Foster noted on a piece of paper.
"It's not one of the most effective," said Quisanté thoughtfully.
"Sails a little near the wind, don't it?" asked Foster with a wink.
"Brief summaries of intricate subjects are almost inevitably open to misunderstanding," observed Quisanté.
"Just so, just so," Foster hurried to say, his eyes grown quite grave again. May remembered Mr. Constantine Blair's plagiarism of her husband's style; had he been there, he must have appropriated this last example also. "I shall end by becoming very fond of Japhet Williams," she said as she got into the carriage. Quisanté glanced at her and did not ask her why.
Meanwhile, however, the other side had got hold of No. 77, and Smiley, the agent, a very clever fellow, wired up to the Temple for young Terence McPhair, who had an acquaintance with the subject. Young Terence, who possessed a ready tongue and no briefs to use it on, made fine play with No. 77; accusations of misrepresentation, ignorant he hoped, fraudulent he feared, flew about thick as snowflakes. The next morning Japhet was round at the Committee Room by ten o'clock. Foster was there, and a boy came up to the Bull with a message asking if Mr. Quisanté could make it convenient to step round. It was a bad morning with Quisanté; his head ached, his heart throbbed, and his stomach was sadly out of gear; he had taken up a report of young Terence's speech, and read it in gloomy silence while the others breakfasted. There was to be a great meeting that night, and they had hoped that he would reserve what strength he had for it. He heard the message, rose without a word, and went down to the Committee Room.
"What'll he do?" asked Jimmy Benyon. "They gave us some nasty knocks last night."
"He can prove that the placard has been withdrawn, at least that no more are to be ordered," said Fanny Gaston. "It wasn't his fault; he's not bound to defend it."
Quisanté came home to a late lunch; he was still ill, but his depression had vanished; he ate, drank, and talked, his spirit rising above the woes of his body.
"What have you done this morning?" Fanny asked.
"Held a meeting in the dinner-hour, had ten interviews, and the usual palaver with Japhet."
"How are Mr. Williams' feelings?" asked May.
"He's all right now," said Quisanté, smiling. Then he added, "Oh, and we've wired to town for two hundred and fifty more of 77."
Then May knew what was going to happen. Quisanté was roused. The placard was untrue, at least misleading, and he knew it was; he might have retreated before young Terence and sheltered himself by an inglorious disclaimer. That, as Aunt Maria said, was not Sandro's way. No. 77 came down by the afternoon train, a corps of bill-posters was let loose, and as they drove to the evening meeting the town was red with it. Withdrawn, disclaimed, apologised for? It was insisted on, relied on, made a trump card of, flung full in young Terence's audacious face. May sat by her husband in that strange mixed mood that he roused in her, half pride, half humiliation; scorning him because he would not bow before the truth, exulting in the audacity, the dash, and the daring of him, at the spirit that caught victory out of danger and turned mistake into an occasion of triumph. For triumph it was that night. Who could doubt his sincerity, who question the injured honour that rang like a trumpet through his words? And who could throw any further slur on No. 77, thus splendidly championed, vindicated, and almost sanctified? Never yet in Henstead had they heard him so inspired; to May herself it seemed the finest thing he had yet done; and even young Terence, when he read it, felt glad that he had left Henstead by the morning train.
As Quisanté sank into his chair amid a tumult of applause, Foster winked across the platform at May; but little Japhet Williams was clapping his hands as madly as any man among them. Who could not congratulate him, who could not praise him, who could not feel that he was a man to be proud of and a man to serve? Yet most undoubtedly No. 77 was untrue or at least misleading, and Alexander Quisanté knew it. Undoubtedly he had said "No more of it." And now he had pinned it as his colours to the mast. May found herself looking at him with as fresh an interest and as great a fear as in the first weeks of their marriage. Would she in her heart have had him honest over No. 77, honest and inglorious? Or was she coming to think as he did, and to ask little concerning honesty? What would Weston Marchmont think of the affair? Or, short of that, how Morewood would smile and the Dean shake his head!
The No. 77 episode was very typical of that time, and most typical of Alexander Quisanté's conduct, of Sandro's way. His best and his worst, his highest and his lowest, were called out; at one moment he wheedled an ignorant fool with flattery, at another he roused keen honest men to fine enthusiasm; now he seemed to have no thought that was not selfish and mean, now imagination rapt him to a glow of heart-felt patriotism. The good and the bad both stood him in stead, and hope reigned in his camp. But all hung in the balance, for Sir Winterton was tall and handsome, bluff and hearty, a good landlord, a good sportsman, a good man, a neighbour to the town and a friend to half of it. And the great cry did not seem like proving a great success.
"It's up-hill work against Sir Winterton," said Japhet Williams, rubbing his thin little hands together.
A troubled look spread over the broad face of that provincial diplomatist, Mr. Foster the maltster; he knew where the danger lay. They would come to Quisanté's meetings, applaud him, admire him, be proud of his efforts to please them; but when the day came would they not think (and would not their wives remind them) that Sir Winterton was a neighbour and a friend and that Lady Mildmay was kind and sweet? Then, having shouted for Quisanté, would they not in the peaceful obscurity of the ballot put their cross opposite Mildmay's name?
"I'm not easy about it, sir, that I'm not," said Foster, wiping his broad red brow.
Quisanté was not easy either, as his lined face and his high-strung manner showed; he was half-killing himself and he was not easy. So much hung on it; before all England he had backed himself to win, and in the strain of his excitement it seemed to him that the stake he laid was his whole reputation. Was all that to go, and to go on no great issue, but just because Sir Winterton was bluff and cheery and Lady Mildmay kind and sweet? Another thing he knew about himself; if he lost this time, he must be out in the cold at least for a long time; he could not endure another contest, even if the offer of a candidature came to him, even though Aunt Maria found the funds. Everything was on this fling of the dice then; and it seemed to him almost iniquitous that he should lose because Sir Winterton was bluff and cheery and his wife kind and sweet. His face was hard and cunning as he leant across towards old Foster and said in a low voice, with a sneering smile,
"I suppose there's nothing against this admirable gentleman?"
Old Foster started a little, recollecting perhaps that fine passage in the speech which opened the campaign, the passage which defined the broad public lines of the contest and loftily disclaimed any personal attack or personal animosity. But the next moment he smiled in answer, smiled thoughtfully, as he tapped his teeth with the handle of his pen-knife. Quisanté sat puffing at a cigar and looking straight at him with observant searching eyes.
"Anything against him, eh?" asked Foster in a ruminative tone.
"They've been ready enough to ask where I come from, and how I live, and so on."
"They know all that about Sir Winterton, you see, sir."
"Yes, confound them." The keen eyes were still on Foster; the fat old man shifted his position a little and ceased to meet their regard. "We don't want to be beaten, you know," said Quisanté.
A silence of some minutes followed. Quisanté, rose and strolled off to a table, where he began to sort papers; Foster sat where he was, frowning a little, with his mouth pursed up. He stole a glance at Quisanté's back, a curious enquiring glance.
"I know nothing about the rights of it one way or the other," he said at last. "But some of the men up at the mills and in my place still remember Tom Sinnett's affair. Only the other night, as Sir Winterton drove by, one of them shouted out, 'Where's Susy Sinnett?'"
Quisanté went on sorting papers and did not turn round.
"Who the deuce is Susy Sinnett?" he asked indifferently, with a laugh.
"It was about five years ago—before Sir Winterton's split with the Liberals. Tom was a keeper in Sir Winterton's employ, and Sir Winterton charged him with netting game and sending it to London on his own account." Foster's narrative ceased and he looked again at his candidate's back. The papers rustled and the cigar smoke mounted to the ceiling. "Well?" said Quisanté.
"Tom was found guilty at Sessions; but in the dock he declared Sir Winterton had trumped up the charge to shut his mouth."
"What about?"
"Well, because he'd found Sir Winterton dangling after Susy, and threatened to break his head if he found him there again." He paused, Quisanté made no comment. "Tom got nine months, and when he came out all the family emigrated to Manitoba."
After a short pause, filled by the arrangement of papers, Quisanté observed, "That must have cost money. He'd saved out of what he got for the game, eh?"
"It was supposed Sir Winterton found the money," said Foster, "but nothing was known. Sir Winterton refused to make any statement. He said his friends would know what to think, and he didn't care a damn (that was his word) about anybody else. Still some weren't satisfied. But the talk died away, except here and there among the men who'd been Tom's pals. I daresay Tom gave 'em a rabbit now and again in exchange for a pot of beer, and they missed him." Mr. Foster ended with a little chuckle.
"I think Sir Winterton might have been a little more explicit," Quisanté remarked. "There's some excuse for thinking an explanation not unnecessary. What became of the girl? Did she go to Manitoba?"
"I believe she did in the end, but she'd married a man from Dunn's works and left the town three months after her father was sent to prison."
Quisanté came back to the hearth and stood looking down on old Foster.
"Rather a queer story," he said. "But I meant, was there anything against him of a public nature, in his local record, anything of that sort, you know."
"I know nothing of that kind," said Foster, raising his eyes and meeting his leader's. He looked rather puzzled, as if he were still not quite sure what Quisanté's question had meant, in spite of Quisanté's explanation of it. "I'd almost forgotten this, but Japhet Williams mentioned it the other day. You know Japhet by now. He said he thought he ought to ask Sir Winterton to make a statement."
A sudden gleam shot through Quisanté's eyes.
"Mr. Williams' active conscience at work again?" he asked with a sneering laugh.
"That's it," said Foster, still looking stolidly at his chief. "But I know Sir Winterton; he'd only say what he did before."
Quisanté turned, flung the end of his cigar into the grate, and turned back to Foster, saying,
"Mr. Williams must do as he thinks right; but of course I can't have any hand in a matter of that kind."
"Just so, just so," murmured Foster as hurriedly but even more vaguely than usual. His chief was puzzling him still.
"I can't have anything at all to do with it," Quisanté repeated emphatically. Foster did not quite know whence he gathered the impression, but he was left with the feeling that, if he should chance ever to be asked what had passed between them on the subject, he must remember this sentence at least, whatever else of the conversation he recollected or forgot.
"Of course you can't, sir. I only mentioned it in passing," said he.
"And you'd better tell Japhet Williams so, if he mentions the matter." The slightest pause followed. "Or," added Quisanté, grinding his heel into the hearth rug as though in absence of mind, "if it happens to crop up in talk between you."
Whether the matter did crop up as suggested or not is one of those points of secret history which it seems useless to try to discover. But an incident which occurred the next evening showed that Japhet Williams' mind and conscience had, either of their own motion or under some outside direction, been concerning themselves with the question of Tom Sinnett and his daughter Susy. There was a full and enthusiastic meeting of Sir Winterton's supporters. In spite of Quisanté's victory over No. 77, they were in good heart and fine fighting fettle; Sir Winterton was good-tempered and sanguine; there was enough opposition to give the affair go, not enough to make itself troublesome. But at the end, after a few of the usual questions and the usual verbal triumphs of the candidate, a small man rose from the middle of the hall. He was greeted by hoots, with a few cheers mingling. The Chairman begged silence for their worthy fellow-townsman, Councillor Japhet Williams.
Japhet was perfectly self-possessed; he had been, he said, as a rule a supporter of the opposite party, but he kept his mind open and was free to admit that he had been considerably impressed by some of the arguments which had fallen from Sir Winterton Mildmay that evening. The meeting applauded, and Sir Winterton nodded and smiled. There was one matter, however, which he felt it his duty to mention. Now that Sir Winterton Mildmay (the full name came with punctilious courtesy every time) was appealing to a wider circle than that of his personal friends and acquaintances, now that he—was seeking the confidence of his fellow-townsmen in general (A voice "He's got it too," and cheers), would Sir Winterton Mildmay consider the desirability of reconsidering the attitude he had taken up some time ago, and consider the desirability (Japhet's speech was not very artistically phrased but he loved the long words) of making a fuller public statement with reference to what he (Mr. Japhet Williams) would term the Sinnett affair? And with this Japhet sat down, having caused what the reporters very properly described as a "Sensation"—and an infinite deal of hooting and groaning to boot. But there were cheers also from the back of the room, where a body of roughly dressed sturdy fellows sat sucking at black clay pipes; these were men from the various works, from Dunn's and from Japhet's own.
As Japhet proceeded Sir Winterton's handsome face had grown ruddier and ruddier; when Japhet finished, he sat still through the hubbub, but his hand twitched and he clutched the elbow of his chair tightly. The platform collectively looked uncomfortable. The chairman—he was Green, the linen-draper in High Street—glanced uneasily at Sir Winterton and then whispered in his ear. Sir Winterton threw a short remark at him, the chairman shrank back with the appearance of having been snubbed. Sir Winterton rose slowly to his feet, still very red in the face, still controlling himself to a calmness of gesture and voice. But all he said in answer to that most respected and influential townsman Mr. Japhet Williams was,
"No, I won't."
And down he plumped into his chair again.
Not a word of courtesy, not a word of respect for Japhet's motives, not even an appeal for trust, not even a simple pledge of his word! A curt and contemptuous "No, I won't," was all that Sir Winterton's feelings, or Sir Winterton's sensitiveness, or his temper, or his obstinacy, allowed him to utter. Sir Winterton was a great man, no doubt, but at election times the People also enjoys a transient sense of greatness and of power. The cheers were less hearty now, the groans more numerous; the audience felt that, in its own person and in the person of Japhet Williams, it was being treated with disrespect; already one or two asked, "If he's got a fair and square answer, why don't he give it?" The superfine sense of honour, which feels itself wounded by being asked for a denial and soiled by condescending to give one, is of a texture too delicate for common appreciation. "No, I won't," said Sir Winterton, red in the face, and the meeting felt snubbed. Why did he snub them? The meeting began to feel suspicious. There were no more questions; the proceedings were hurried through; Sir Winterton drove off, pompous in his anger, red from his hurt feelings, stiff in his obstinacy. The cheer that followed him had not its former heartiness.
"I only did my duty," said Japhet to a group who surrounded him.
"That's right, Mr. Williams," he was answered. "We know you. Don't you let yourself be silenced, sir." For everybody now remembered the Sinnett affair, which had seemed so forgotten, everybody had a detail to tell concerning it, his own views to set forth, or those of some shrewd friend to repeat. That night the taverns in the town were full of it, and at many a supper table the story was told over again. As for Japhet, he dropped in at Mr. Foster's and told what he had done, complaining bitterly of how Sir Winterton had treated him, declaring that he had been prepared to listen to any explanation, almost to take Sir Winterton's simple word, but that he was not to be bullied in a matter in which his own conscience and the rights of the constituency were plainly and deeply involved. Mr. Foster said as little as he could.
"It won't do for me to take any part," he remarked. "I'm too closely connected with Mr. Quisanté, and I know he wouldn't wish to enter into such a matter."
"I'm not acting as a party man," said Japhet Williams, "and this isn't a party matter. But a plain answer to a plain question isn't much to ask, and I mean to ask for it till I get it, or know the reason why I can't."
Dim rumours of a "row" at Sir Winterton's meeting reached the Bull that night, brought by Jimmy Benyon, who had been at a minor meeting across the railway bridge among the railway men. Somebody had brought up an old scandal, and the candidate's answer had not given satisfaction. The ladies showed no curiosity; Quisanté, very tired, lay on the sofa doing nothing, neither reading, nor talking, nor sleeping. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, he seemed hardly to hear what Jimmy said, and he also asked no questions. So Jimmy, dismissing the matter from his mind, went to bed, leaving Quisanté still lying there, with wide-open eyes.
There he lay a long while alone; once or twice he frowned, once or twice he smiled. Was he thinking over the opportunity that offered, and the instrument that presented itself? What chances might lie in Sir Winterton's dogged honour and tender sensitiveness on the one hand, and on the other in that conscience of little Japhet's, stronger now in its alliance with hurt pride and outraged self-importance! And nobody could say that Quisanté himself had had any part in it; he had spoken to nobody except Foster, and he had told Foster most plainly that he would have nothing to do with such a matter. There he lay, making his case, the case he could tell to all the world, the case Foster also could tell, the case that both Foster and he could and would tell, if need be, to all the world, to all the world—and to May Quisanté.
"Sandro always has a case," said Aunt Maria. He had a case about what Japhet termed the Sinnett affair, just as he had had a case, and a very strong one as it had proved, about placard No. 77. When at last he dragged his weary overdone body to bed, his lips were set tight and his eyes were eager. It was the look that meant something in his mind, good or bad, but anyhow a resolution, and the prospect of work to be done. Had May seen him then, she would have known the look, and hoped and feared. But she was sleeping, and none asked Quisanté what was in his mind that night.
A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE.
Up to the present time all had gone most smoothly at Moors End, the Mildmays' old manor-house, eight miles from Henstead, and Lady Mildmay had confided many quiet self-congratulations to Mrs. Baxter's ear. For it had seemed possible that the election might prove a cause of perturbation. Lady Mildmay was still in love with her handsome well-preserved husband, and had every confidence in him, but to a chosen friend she would sometimes admit that he was "difficult"; she called him not proud and obstinate, but sensitive and a little touchy; she hinted that he could not bear unpleasant looks, and yet was not very ready to make concessions to friendship. No doubt he needed some management, and Lady Mildmay, like many wives, found one of her chief functions to consist in acting as a buffer between her husband and a world which did not always approach him with enough gentleness and consideration. Hence her joy at the prosperous passage of a critical time, at the enthusiasm of their supporters, and at the gratification and urbanity of Sir Winterton. Satisfaction begat charity, and Lady Mildmay had laughingly dismissed some portentous hints which Mrs. Baxter let fall about the certain character and the probable tactics of Mr. Quisanté.
"His wife looks so nice, he can't be very bad," said kind Lady Mildmay, using an argument of most uncritical charity.
Although the Dean, if pressed, must have ranked himself among his host's political opponents, he was so little of a party man and had so many points of sympathy with Sir Winterton (especially on Church matters) that he very contentedly witnessed the contest from Moors End and no longer troubled himself to conceal his hopes of a Moors End triumph. Nevertheless he was judiciously reticent about Quisanté, generously eulogistic of May. Sir Winterton looked forward to making the acquaintance of both, but thought that the occasion had better be postponed till they had ceased to be opponents.
"But I hope you and your wife'll go over as often as you like," he said to the Dean very cordially. But the Dean and Mrs. Baxter did not go, perhaps preferring not to divide their sympathies, perhaps fearing that they might seem like spies and be suspected of carrying back information to the rival camp. "I dare say you're wise," said Sir Winterton, rather relieved; he had made the suggestion because it was the handsome thing to do, but was not eager that it should be accepted. To do the handsome thing and to meet with pleasant looks were the two requisites most essential to Sir Winterton's happiness; given these he was at his best and his best was a fine specimen of the class to which he belonged. There was, however, a weak side to these two desires of his, as the history of the Sinnett affair to some extent indicated.
The first shock to Sir Winterton's good temper had been the matter of No. 77; until then he had been lavish of the usual polite compliments to his opponent's personal character. After No 77's prodigal reappearance and Quisanté's rhetorical effort in defence of it these assurances were no more on his lips, and for a time he bore himself with strict reserve when Quisanté was mentioned. He had been right in the dispute, and he had been beaten; silence was the utmost that could be expected of his tolerance or his self-control; his refusal to speak on the subject showed his opinion well enough, and he must not be blamed too severely if he listened without protest and perhaps with pleasure to Mrs. Baxter's pungent criticisms. Of course she had been reminded of something—of the strictures which a certain Provincial Editor had passed on the household arrangements of a certain Minor Canon; a libel action had ensued, and the jury had been beguiled into finding for the defendant on a bare literal construction of words which to anybody acquainted with local circumstances bore another and much blacker meaning. This Mrs. Baxter called a pettifogging trick, and she pursued her parallel till the same terms were obviously indicated as appropriate to Quisanté's conduct.
"My dear!" said the Dean in mild protest; but Sir Winterton laughed as though he had enjoyed the story. He was at once favoured with the further parallel of the Girdlestones' coachman and, as the conversation drifted to May, of the Nonconformist Minister's daughter and the Circus Proprietor. All Mrs. Baxter's armoury of reminiscence was heartily at his service.
But No. 77 did not after all touch Sir Winterton very closely. His temper had begun to recover and he had nearly forgiven Quisanté when suddenly Japhet Williams produced a far more severe and deadly shock. His action was a bomb, and a bomb thrown from a hand which Moors End had been fain to think was or might be friendly. Was not Japhet a neighbour, only two miles off along the Henstead Road, and did not Lady Mildmay and Mrs. Williams, religious differences notwithstanding, work together every year on the Committee of the Cottage Gardens and Window-Boxes Show? Had not Japhet himself been understood to be reconsidering his political opinions? There was even more. The Sinnett affair was the one subject utterly forbidden, most rigidly tabooed, at Moors End. All Sir Winterton's relatives, friends, acquaintances, and dependents knew that well. Sir Winterton's honour and temper had never been so wounded as over that affair. By Japhet's hand it was dragged into light again; the odious thing became once more the gossip of Henstead, once more a disgusting topic which it was impossible wholly to ignore at Moors End. This was plain enough since, on the morning after Japhet's question had been put, Lady Mildmay was discussing the position with Mrs. Baxter in the morning-room, while the Dean and Sir Winterton walked round and round the lawn in gloomy conversation punctuated by gloomier silences.
What the actual history was Lady Mildmay's narrative showed pretty accurately. Sir Winterton's predominant desires, to do the handsome thing and to meet with pleasant looks, evidently had played a large part. Lady Mildmay blushed a little and smiled as she began by observing that Sir Winterton had distinguished the girl by some kind notice; he liked her, he always liked nice-spoken nice-looking girls; for her sake and her mother's (a very decent woman), he had forgiven Tom many irregularities. At last his patience gave out and Tom was prosecuted; when arrested, Tom had tried blackmail; Sir Winterton was not to be bullied, and Tom's speech from the dock was no more than an outburst of defeated malice.
Then came on the scene Sir Winterton's kind heart and his predominant desires. He had made the girl a present to facilitate her marriage and had got the husband work away from the town, where no gossip would have reached. This seemed enough, and so Doctor Tillman, an old and wise friend, urged. But as the time of Tom's release approached and his wife made preparations for receiving him in a cottage just on the edge of Sir Winterton's estate, it became odious to think of the black looks and scowls which would embitter every ride in that direction. "I want to forget the whole thing, to get rid of it, to blot it all out," said Sir Winterton fretfully. Prison had induced reason in Tom Sinnett; he made his submission and accepted the liberal help which carried him and his wife, his daughter and her husband, to a new life across the seas. Then Sir Winterton had peace in his heart and abroad; he had behaved most handsomely, and there were no scowling faces to remind him of the hateful episode. He had met the gossip boldly and defiantly; it had died away and had seemed utterly forgotten and extinct; the low grumbles and not very seemly jokes which still lingered among the men at the various works in Henstead, where Tom had been a persona grata, never reached the ears of the great folk at Moors End; it is perhaps only at election times that such things become audible in such quarters.