"It is such a lovely place."

"I am glad you like it," he answered, absently. "I see your uncle cannot find a four-wheeler. You must take my carriage. I am only going a few steps."

Mary's eager protest was drowned in Selina's shrill torrent of thanks.

Lord Arranmore beckoned to his coachman, and the brougham, with its pair of strong horses, drew up against the pavement. The footman threw open the door. Selina entered in a fever for fear a cab which her father was signalling should, after all, respond to his summons. Mr. Bullsom found his breath taken away.

"We couldn't possibly take your lordship's carriage," he protested.

"I have only a few steps to go, Mr. Bullsom, and it would be a kindness, for my horses are never more than half exercised. At 10:30 to-morrow then."

He stood bareheaded upon the pavement for a moment, and Selina's eyes and smile had never worked harder. Mary leaned back, too angry to speak. Selina and Mr. Bullsom sat well forward, and pulled both windows down.

CHAPTER II

THE HECKLING OF HENSLOW

"The long and short of it is, then, Mr. Henslow, that you decline to fulfil your pledges given at the last election?" Brooks asked, coldly.

"Nothing of the sort," Mr. Henslow declared, testily. "You have no right to suggest anything of the sort."

"No right!"

"Certainly not. You are my agent, and you ought to work with me instead--"

"I have already told you," Brooks interrupted, '"that I am nothing of the sort. I should not dream of acting for you again, and if you think a formal resignation necessary, I will post you one to-morrow. I am one of your constituents, nothing more or less. But as I am in some measure responsible for your presence here, I consider myself within my rights in asking you these questions."

"I'm not going to be hectored!" Mr. Henslow declared.

"Nobody wants to hector you! You gave certain pledges to us, and you have not fulfilled one of them."

"They won't let me. I'm not here as an independent Member. I'm here as a Liberal, and Sir Henry himself struck out my proposed question and motion. I must go with the Party."

"You know quite well," Brooks said, "that you are within your rights in keeping the pledges you made to the mass meeting at Medchester."

Henslow shook his head.

"It would be no good," he declared. "I've sounded lots of men about it.

I myself have not changed. I believe in some measure of protection. I am a firm believer in it. But the House wouldn't listen to me. The times are not ripe for anything of the sort yet."

"How do you know until you try?" Brooks protested. "Your promise was to bring the question before Parliament in connection with the vast and increasing number of unemployed. You are within your rights in doing so, and to speak frankly we insist upon it, or we ask for your resignation."

"Are you speaking with authority, young man?" Mr. Henslow asked.

"Of course I am. I am the representative of the Liberal Parliamentary Committee, and I am empowered to say these things to you, and more.

"Well, I'll do the best I can to get a date," Mr. Henslow said, grumblingly, "but you fellows are always in such a hurry, and you don't understand that it don't go up here. We have to wait our time month after month sometimes."

"I don't see any motion down in your name at all yet," Brooks remarked.

"I told you that Sir Henry struck it through."

"Then I shall call upon him and point out that he is throwing away a Liberal seat at the next election," Brooks replied. "He isn't the sort of man to encourage a Member to break his election pledges."

"You'll make a mess of the whole thing if you do anything of the sort,"

Henslow declared. "Look here, come and have a bit of dinner with me, and talk things over a bit more pleasantly, eh? There's no use in getting our rags out."

"Please excuse me," Brooks said. "I have arranged to dine elsewhere. I do not wish to seem dictatorial or unreasonable, but I have just come from Medchester, where the distress is, if anything, worse than ever.

It makes one's heart sick to walk the streets, and when I look into the people's faces I seem to always hear that great shout of hope and enthusiasm which your speech in the market-place evoked. You see, there is only one real hope for these people, and that is legislation, and you are the man directly responsible to them for that."

"I'll tell you what I'll do!" Mr. Henslow said, in a burst of generosity. "I'll send another ten guineas to the Unemployed Fund."

"Take my advice and don't," Brooks answered, dryly. "They might be reminded of the people who clamoured for bread and were offered a stone.

Do your duty here. Keep your pledges. Speak in the House with the same passion and the same eloquence as when you sowed hope in the heart of those suffering thousands. Some one must break away from this musty routine of Party politics. The people will be heard, Mr. Henslow.

Their voice has dominated the fate of every nation in time, and it will be so with ours."

Mr. Henslow was silent for a few minutes. This young man who would not drink champagne, or be hail-fellow-well-met, and who was in such deadly earnest, was a nuisance.

"I tell you what I'll do," he said at last. "I'll have a few words with Sir Henry, and see you tomorrow at what time you like."

"Certainly," Brooks answered, rising. "If you will allow me to make a suggestion, Mr. Henslow, I would ask you to run through in your memory all your speeches and go through your pledges one by one. Let Sir Henry understand that your constituents will not be trifled with, for it is not a question of another candidate, it is a question of another party.

You have set the ball rolling, and I can assure you that the next Member whom Medchester sends here, whether it be you or any one else, will come fully pledged to a certain measure of Protection."

Mr. Henslow nodded.

"Very well," he said, gloomily. "Where are you staying?

"At the Metropole. Mr. Bullsom is there also."

"I will call," Mr. Henslow promised, "at three o'clock, if that is convenient."

Brooks passed out across the great courtyard and through the gates. He had gone to his interview with Henslow in a somewhat depressed state of mind, and its result had not been enlivening. Were all politics like this? Was the greatest of causes, the cause of the people, to be tossed about from one to the other, a joke with some, a juggling ball with others, never to be dealt with firmly and wisely by the brains and generosity of the Empire? He looked back at the Houses of Parliament, with their myriad lights, their dark, impressive outline. And for a moment the depression passed away. He thought of the freedom which had been won within those walls, of the gigantic struggles, the endless, restless journeying onward towards the truths, the great truths of the world. All politicians were not as this man Henslow. There were others, more strenuous, more single-hearted. He himself--and his heart beat at the thought--why should he not take his place there? The thought fascinated him,--every word of Lord Arranmore's letter which he had recently received, seemed to stand out before him. His feet fell more blithely upon the pavement, he carried himself with a different air.

Here were ample means to fill his life,--means by which he could crush out that sweet but unhappy tangle of memories which somehow or other had stolen the flavour out of life for the last few weeks.

At the hotel he glanced at the clock. It was just eight, and he was to accompany the Bullsoms to the theatre. He met them in the hall, and Selina looked with reproach at his morning clothes. She was wearing a new swansdown theatre cloak, with a collar which she had turned up round her face like a frame. She was convinced that she had never looked so well in her life.

"Mr. Brooks, how naughty of you," she exclaimed, shaking her head in mock reproach. "Why, the play begins at 8:15, and it is eight o'clock already. Have you had dinner?"

"Oh, I can manage with something in my room while I change," he answered cheerily. "I'm going to take you all out to supper after the theatre, you know. Don't wait for me--I'll come on. His Majesty's, isn't it?"

"I'll keep your seat," Selina promised him, lowering her voice. "That is, if you are very good and come before it is half over. Do you know that we met a friend of yours, and he lent us his carriage, and I think he's charming."

Brooks looked surprised. He glanced at Mary, and saw a look in her face which came as a revelation to him.

"You don't mean--"

"Lord Arranmore!" Selina declared, triumphantly. "He was so nice, he wouldn't let us come home in a cab. He positively made us take his own carriage."