You'd have heard me say so when he came to the end of his speech; but he's always too long-winded."

"Oh, I don't mind that a bit," said Sir William. "I've been doing the things that the new men do--and some of the old ones too--for some years past. It was a natural mistake. I'm only sorry I let you in for it by keeping quiet in here. To tell you the truth, I wasn't thinking of you. Perhaps I ought to apologize for that. Anyhow, please forget it."

"We will," said Byrne. "No offence meant and none taken, eh? I was coming to look for you after William and I had had our little game. The Chief wants you to go for a stroll with him at half-past three, if it clears up, and if not, will you go and have a chat with him in his room?

I'll take you to him."

The invitation was so significant that it put out of Sir William's mind the awkwardness of the late occurrence, as he waited for the time when the great man should be ready for him. Perhaps it was only a mark of politeness to a guest, and there would be talk about this and that, but about nothing that would matter much to him. The work that they had been engaged upon together was over, and Lord Chippenham was not likely to want to go back to that. What could he want to see him about then? He hardly permitted himself to conjecture; but there was a sense of excitement hanging over him, and he looked many times at his watch as he went here and there in the house and examined the pictures and the other treasures of it, with appreciation, but not with all his attention.

When he had left the billiard-room the two young men looked at one another and Nigel Byrne laughed. "He took it very well, I think," he said. "Quite a nice fellow!"

William Despencer kept a grave face. "I wish I'd known he was there,"

he said. "Why didn't he let us know he was there when we came in?"

"Oh, I don't think he was eavesdropping. I say, let's look him up. I'm bound to say I never thought of him as anything but the usual rich city fellow, with no father to speak of."

"Like Melchizedek. I thought you were going to defend him against my aspersions, if he'd given you time."

"That was my famous tact, William. Eldridge of what, did he say? Ah, here it is."

There were current books of reference on a table in the billiard-room, and Byrne had opened one which dealt faithfully with the County Families and their genealogies.

"Oh, quite respectable!" he said, as they read the entry together. "He's next man in, too, do you see? Present man's only son killed in the war.

He was at Harrow and Cambridge. We've done him an injustice, William. If at any time he likes to make a little contribution to party funds, and somebody or other recommends him for a peerage, he won't have to begin everything from the beginning like so many of them."

"Is that the idea?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Peerages aren't bought and sold in the market, you know, William. You ought to know better than that."

"Well, I still think the mistake was a natural one," said William Despencer, turning away. "He's too elaborate altogether. Those clothes!

Just what a rich city fellow would wear who'd just discovered Saville Row."

"They're no better than mine. He's a good-looking fellow and likes to keep his youth. The Chief thinks a lot of him, you know. He'd like to work with him too, if he was in Parliament."

"His wife's a nice woman. I shall talk to her this evening. I'm sorry he heard me say what I did."

The sun had come out by the time Lord Chippenham was ready for his afternoon walk. Sir William's expectations of a serious talk were a little dashed when he discovered that it was to be taken in the company of two little granddaughters and two little dogs, and as they went down through the gardens and across the park it seemed as if Lord Chippenham's attention would be chiefly taken up by the four of them.

However, no other grown-up person had been invited to join the party, and presently the children and the dogs detached themselves, and only returned to their base now and then, when Lord Chippenham broke off in whatever he might have been saying and talked to them until they were off again.

When the walk was over, and Sir William tried to give some concise account of what had happened to his wife, he found it difficult to put any particular point to it. Lord Chippenham seemed to want him in some undefined way, but had made no actual proposal. He ought to be in Parliament--perhaps as a preliminary to--to office? It almost seemed as if that were indicated; but it was all so vague, and the children were always interrupting at the most critical moments. At one time it almost seemed as if he were hinting that a seat in the House of Lords would be the simplest way to--to what? Really, it was impossible to say. The only definite thing that could be taken hold of was that when they had come in, Lord Chippenham, turning to go into his room, had said: "Well, I think we could do good work together again, and I hope we shall."

The i's seemed to be dotted to some extent later on in the day by Nigel Byrne, who made himself agreeable to Lady Eldridge, and told her that the Chief thought a lot of her husband. "Of course, he ought to be in Parliament," he said. "Has he ever thought about it, do you know?"

Eleanor thought that was intended as a preliminary to anything that might be preparing, though why Lord Chippenham or Mr. Byrne couldn't say so outright she couldn't think. And why had the const.i.tuency of West Loamshire been mentioned as a likely one, to her and not to William?

Politics seemed to be a curiously mysterious game. Still, West Loamshire, where there was likely to be a vacancy shortly--though this was not to be repeated--_had_ been mentioned; and, "I suppose your husband knows George Weldon--the Whip, you know," had been one of the things said that she had to report. She supposed they were meant to put two and two together. Probably, if William went to see George Weldon, he would get on to a more direct path altogether.

They talked it all over, motoring back to London the next morning.

William had sometimes considered a parliamentary career, but not very seriously. He had been too busy with his affairs to take a great deal of interest in politics except where they touched his interests. It would be beginning something all over again, and the preliminary steps to candidature and election would take up a lot of time and money. But it would be different if the preliminaries were made easy for him, and there was something waiting for him that other men had to work up to through years. He was confident of being able to fill any position that might come to him, and had enough patriotism to make the prospect of doing something for his country that he could do better than other people attractive to him.

Eleanor would encourage him too. She was quite as interested in the possibilities they discussed together as he was. He knew that she was not particularly interested in his financial career. It had already brought them to the point where they had everything they wanted that money would give them, and that was all that business meant to her. What was the good of going on for the rest of your life just making more money? But she had liked him to tell her about the work he had been doing during the war, and it would be the same if he took up public work again.

They fell silent for a time, after they had talked it all over, and the big car carried them easily and swiftly along the country roads.

Wellsbury was a two hours' run from London by the most direct route, but they were making it rather longer, so as to see more of the country and to avoid the straight high roads.

Sir William never failed to enjoy a ride in this fine car of his, which he had recently acquired, at immense expense. He did thoroughly enjoy all the things that his money bought him, and liked spending it on them; and the point of satiety which lies somewhere ahead on that road was not yet in sight with him. He enjoyed the luxurious upholstery of his new car; and even the well-clothed back of his chauffeur, with the discreet figure of Eleanor's maid beside it, gave him satisfaction, as adding to the conveniences of his life and hers. He liked to feel well dressed too, and that Eleanor should also be so; and that she should be the kind of woman who carried off beautiful and expensive clothes. He thought that she looked the equal of any of the women who had been at Wellsbury, and he was proud of her, and of the notice that had been taken of her.

Whatever might be the result of this visit, or if there should be no result of it, it stood as a source of completed gratification in itself.

It seemed to have put the seal of success upon his career, and to have set him where he rightly belonged. It was not the sort of recognition that could have been gained by the possession of money, though in his case success in money-making had indirectly led up to it. His reflections were crossed by a momentary shadow at the remembrance of the mistake those two young men--or at least one of them--had made about him yesterday. Surely Lord Chippenham's son might have known that a merely new rich man would not have been made welcome at Wellsbury as he had been. There had been no one remotely resembling that breed among the guests of this party. Still, he had put that right, and it didn't really matter. He was perhaps aware in the background of his mind that exuberance was a note to be watchful of; his upbringing and the standards it had inculcated had made him careful to prune himself. He would not have been so careful if criticism from time to time had not shown him the necessity. Edmund, to whom as a young man he had looked up as the pattern of quiet, self-possessed good breeding, had criticized him on those grounds. He had never quite lost the feeling that Edmund was a finer type of gentleman than himself--until lately, when his own brilliant gifts had brought him into such prominence as Edmund would never attain to. Now he was a little impatient of that old feeling of slight inferiority to his brother, and whatever had survived of it seemed to have been wiped out by this visit to Wellsbury. Edmund would never have been invited to such a house unless it had happened to lie in his local zone of dignity as a landowner.

Sir William considered, in the glow of his satisfaction, as he was carried along between the hedgerows and the full-blossomed trees, the stock from which he had sprung and the alt.i.tudes to which he had arisen, which wanted some adjustment if he were to be proud of both, as his inclination was.

A family that went back two or three hundred years, and for most of the time as landowners in the same county, was something that only a small minority could claim. Yet the Eldridges had never really done anything that put them above the ruck of country squires. They had intermarried here and there with families of higher standing; they had kept their heads up in the world, and were in all the County Histories--as names, but little more. Their dignity had hardly extended beyond the head of the family for the time being. The younger sons were scarcely better off in that respect than the sons of other men, who could give them the right sort of education and start in life. He himself had begun life with no greater advantages than his contemporaries at school and university of birth not so good as his, and if he had not brought his own exceptional gifts into play he would have had just the position that his success at the Bar might have brought him, and no higher. Of course the altered circ.u.mstances brought about by the death of his brother's heir would have made a great difference to him, at least in prospect; but that loomed small now. But for the sentimental attachment which he felt towards the home of his fathers, he would not have cared much now to be Squire of Hayslope. It would not now be his chief claim to consideration, and if he had wished he could have bought himself a finer house than Hayslope and a larger property. Still, Hayslope did mean a good deal to him, and he was inclined to congratulate himself upon being content with the enlarged Hayslope Grange as his country house, and the consequent playing second fiddle to his brother, when he could so easily have been first somewhere else.

He spoke some of the thoughts which were running through his mind when he broke the silence to say to his wife: "I'm afraid poor old Edmund is having a thin time at Hayslope. Hard luck that the owner of a property like that should be pinched, as most of them are in these days, and we who used to think ourselves so much less fortunate should have got quite past them!"

She thought it nice of him to be thinking about his brother's difficulties at this time. She knew that he was exalted by the visit to Wellsbury, and the expectation of something to come out of it. He might have been thought to be full of his own affairs.

"I've had them a good deal on my mind," she said--"Edmund and Cynthia too, and the girls. But we can do something for them, can't we? I think I've been able to do something for Cynthia already, and without making her seem under an obligation."

"Oh, you can do things for Cynthia. But Edmund--he stands so on his dignity, you see. I think he's inclined to stand too much on his dignity, at least with me. After all, a country squire--I've come to be a good deal more than that, and I'm the one person whom he might accept help from."

"Does he really need help?"

"Oh, he can get along all right, of course. But it's a different life for him now. I suppose I couldn't expect him to accept money from me so that they could carry on in the way they did before the war. I'd give it him readily enough if he would, and be glad to. But there are ways in which I _could_ help him--one in particular. But one must take him as he is. We must do what we can for Cynthia and the girls, and I shall always be on the lookout to do something for him if I can. I've got on and he's stood still--or gone back, rather. I don't want him to go back any further."

CHAPTER IX

LETTERS

The Eldridges arrived home in time for luncheon. They lived in a large house in Belgravia, old enough to have some character of s.p.a.ce and dignity, but old enough also to have been exceedingly inconvenient if much money had not been spent in modernizing it. It had been their London home for about fifteen years, and was a trifle behind the latest fashion in furnishing and decoration. The latest of such fashions, it should be recognized, rests upon the recognition of the value of older fashions, which in its fulness dates from a very few years back. There was plenty of good old furniture in the Eldridges' house, some of it now of considerable value, but it would have welded itself into quite a different whole if the "doing up" and furnishing of the house had been taken in hand some years later than it was. The time was approaching when Sir William would acquire another, possibly still larger house, and begin all over again. He was already vaguely dissatisfied with this one; but it had qualities which pleased him too, and he had never quite lost the sense of satisfaction with which he had moved into it from a smaller house and spent money upon making it the place in which they should live the larger life that was then opening out before them. His own room, with its outlook upon a little square of walled-in garden, was a very refuge, and he and his wife sometimes sat there in the few evenings when they were at home together alone, in a grateful seclusion of green morocco and bright Turkey carpet, with books and prints on the Morris-decked walls, and only the huge and hideous American desk, of the palest possible growth of oak, to indicate the sterner purposes to which the room was primarily dedicated.

Sir William went into this room on their arrival, and turned over the pile of letters and papers that were there awaiting him. He opened a few of them, and glanced over their contents, and then unlocked his desk, but only to put certain of the papers away. He was too excited to take up his immediate affairs in the short time that remained before luncheon, though on ordinary occasions he would have done so, for he hated wasting even a few minutes of his time.

He had thought over what had happened, and what might happen during the journey to London. But, coming thus into his familiar room, he seemed to see it all with a new significance. He had the feeling that he had come back to this room a different man--a bigger man than the one who had used it before; and the feeling rather surprised him. For, after all, to spend a few days in a large country house was no new experience to him, he had been in close contact with Lord Chippenham before for many months upon end, and the idea of a seat in Parliament was not entirely a novelty. What had happened, he decided, as he walked up and down the room, or stood looking out upon the green and bright colour of the little paved square of garden, was that he had attained to recognition, when he had thought that the official chapter of his life was closed. It set a higher value on it, even to himself. He was not the same man as had for so long occupied this room, and thought of his public work as efficiently done for the good of his country, but as already a thing of the past. The chapter was not closed, but might lead to other chapters, beyond the present scope of his imagination. It had put him among the men of his time who counted for something. Lord Chippenham, whatever his stirring of expectation might have meant, undoubtedly thought of him as counting for something already. The last year, during which he had attended to his affairs, and spent as much of his time as he could spare from them at Hayslope, had only been a lull. His foot was already on the ladder of distinction, and he might mount on it higher than he had ever thought of mounting.

He was summoned to luncheon, and took some of his as yet unopened letters in with him. He did not come to the one from his brother until he and his wife were alone together.

"Well, I never--!"

Lady Eldridge looked up, to see his face dark and angry. "Read that," he said, throwing the letter across to her; "the first part, I mean," and waited till she had done so, though phrases of indignation kept rising to his lips, which he stifled by occupying them with food and drink, too hastily consumed.

He did not wait for her remarks, when she looked up again, with consternation on her face. "You heard what I said about Edmund only just this morning," he broke out. "I'm always thinking what I can do for him, and that's the way he treats me in return. Really, it's incredible!"

"I must say I'm surprised," she said unwillingly as it seemed, and turned to the letter again.

"It's beyond everything," he went on angrily. "'This treatment must stop'--what is it that he says? Haven't I always deferred to him at Hayslope, because he's my elder brother, and lately I've been sorry for him? What on earth can he mean by writing to me like that? _What_ treatment, I should like to know! I've spent thousands of pounds on his property, and should never have got a penny of it back if it hadn't been for Hugo's death. His position on his own ground! What have I ever done to belittle it?"