Brooks was genuinely disturbed. His own suspicions had been gathering strength during the last few weeks. Henslow had been pleasant enough, but a little flippant after the election. From London he had promised to write to Mr. Bullsom, as chairman of his election committee, mapping out the course of action which, in pursuance of his somewhat daring pledges, he proposed to embark upon. This was more than a month ago, and there had come not a single word from him. All that vague distrust which Brooks had sometimes felt in the man was rekindled and increased, and with it came a flood of bitter thoughts. Another opportunity then was to be lost. For seven years longer these thousands of pallid, heart-weary men and women were to suffer, with no one to champion their cause. He saw again that sea of eager faces in the market-place, lit with a sudden gleam of hope as they listened to the bold words of the man who was promising them life and hope and better things. Surely if this was a betrayal it was an evil deed, not passively to be borne.

Mr. Bullsom had refreshed himself with whisky-and-water, and decided that pessimism was not a healthy state of mind.

"I tell you what it is, Brooks," he said, more cheerfully. "We mustn't be too previous in judging the fellow. Let's write him civilly, and if nothing comes of it in a week or two, we will run up to London, you and me, eh? and just haul him over the coals."

"You are right, Mr. Bullsom," Brooks said. "There is nothing we can do for the present."

"Please don't talk any more horrid politics," Selina begged. "We want Mr. Brooks to give us a lesson at billiards. Do you mind?"

Brooks rose at once.

"I shall be charmed!" he declared.

Mr. Bullsom rose also.

"Pooh, pooh!" he said. "Brooks and I will have a hundred up and you can watch us. That'll be lesson enough for you."

Selina made a little grimace, but they all left the room together. In the hall a housemaid was speaking at the telephone, and a moment afterwards she laid the receiver down and came towards them.

"It is a message for Mr. Brooks, sir, from the Queen's Hotel. Lord Arranmore's compliments, and the ladies from Enton are at the theatre this evening, and would be glad if Mr. Brooks would join them at the Queen's Hotel for supper at eleven o'clock."

Brooks hesitated, but Mr. Bullsom spoke up at once.

"Off you go, Brooks," he said, firmly. "Don't you go refusing an invitation like that. Lord Arranmore is a bit eccentric, they say, and he isn't the sort of man to like refusals. You've just got time."

"They had the message two hours ago, and have been trying everywhere to find Mr. Brooks," the housemaid added.

Selina helped him on with his coat.

"Will you come another evening soon and play billiards with us?" she asked, dropping her voice a little.

"With pleasure," Brooks answered. "Do you mind saying good-bye to your cousin for me? I am sorry not to see her again."

CHAPTER XV

A SUPPER-PARTY AT THE "QUEEN'S"

Brooks was shown into a private room at the Queen's Hotel, and he certainly had no cause to complain of the warmth of his welcome. Lady Sybil, in fact, made room for him by her side, and he fancied that there was a gleam of reproach in her eyes as she looked up at him.

"Is Medchester really so large a place that one can get lost in it?" she asked. "Lord Arranmore has been sending messengers in every direction ever since we decided upon our little excursion.

"I telephoned to your office, sent a groom to your rooms and to the club, and at last we had given you up," Lord Arranmore remarked.

"And I," Sybil murmured, "was in a shocking bad temper."

"It is very good of you all," Brooks remarked, cheerfully. "I left the office rather early, and have been giving a sort of lecture to-night at the Secular Hall. Then I went up to have a game of billiards with Mr.

Bullsom. Your telephone message found me there. You must remember that even if Medchester is not a very large place I am a very unimportant person."

"Dear me, what modesty," Lady Caroom remarked, laughing. "To us, however, you happened to be very important. I hate a party of three."

Brooks helped himself to a quail, and remembered that he was hungry.

"This is very unusual dissipation, isn't it?" he asked. "I never dreamed that you would be likely to come into our little theatre."

"It was Sybil's doings," Lady Caroom answered. "She declared that she was dull, and that she had never seen A /Message from Mars./ I think that all that serious talk the other evening gave her the blues."

"I am always dull in the winter when there is no hunting," Sybil remarked. "This frost is abominable. I have not forgotten our talk either. I feel positively wicked every time I sip champagne."

"Our young philanthropist will reassure you," Arranmore remarked, drily.

Lady Caroom sighed.

"I wonder how it is," she murmured, "that one's conscience and one's digestion both grow weaker as one grows old. You and I, Arranmore, are content to accept the good things of the earth as they come to us."

"With me," he answered, "it is the philosophy of approaching old age, but you have no such excuse. With you it must be sheer callousness.

You are in an evil way, Lady Caroom. Do have another of these quails."

"You are very rude," she answered, "and extremely unsympathetic. But I will have another quail."

"I do not Want to destroy your appetite, Mr. Brooks," Lady Sybil said, "but this is--if not a farewell feast, something like it."

He looked at her with sudden interest.

"You are going away?" he exclaimed.

"Very soon," she assented. "We were so comfortable at Enton, and the hunting has been so good, that we cut out one of our visits. Mamma developed a convenient attack of influenza. But the next one is very near now, and our host is almost tired of us."

Lord Arranmore was for a moment silent.

"You have made Enton," he said, "intolerable for a solitary man. When you go I go."

"I wish you could say whither instead of when," Lady Caroom answered.

"How bored you would be at Redcliffe. It is really the most outlandish place we go to."

"Why ever do we accept, mamma?" Sybil asked. "Last year I nearly cried my eyes out, I was so dull. Not a man fit to talk to, or a horse fit to ride. The girls bicycle, and Lord Redcliffe breeds cattle and talks turnips."

"And they all drink port after dinner," Lady Caroom moaned; "but we have to go, dear. We must live rent free somewhere during these months to get through the season."

Sybil looked at Brooks with laughter in her eyes.

"Aren't we terrible people?" she whispered. "You are by way of being literary, aren't you? You should write an article on the shifts of the aristocracy. Mamma and I could supply you with all the material. The real trouble, of course, is that I don't marry."

"Fancy glorying in your failure," Lady Caroom said, complacently.

"Three seasons, Arranmore, have I had to drag that girl round. I've washed my hands of her now. She must look after herself. A girl who refuses one of the richest young men in England because she didn't like his collars is incorrigible."

"It was not his collars, mother," Sybil objected. "It was his neck. He was always called 'the Giraffe.' He had no head and all neck--the most fatuous person, too. I hate fools."