Cynthia opened the door and went out.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE LITTLE BIT EXTRA

Yet that August when Parliament had risen, Harry Rames and Cynthia were cruising in the Solent and no word had been spoken by her to remedy their trouble. It was Cynthia who had proposed this holiday and Harry had fallen in with her plan eagerly. They had chartered a small steam yacht of a hundred tons. Rames navigated the boat himself and slipping their moorings one afternoon, they left Cowes behind them and steamed away through the north channel of the Shingles to Poole.

Cynthia had ceased to wrestle with herself. She was content to lie in her deck chair and put into and out of the harbors of the West.

"This shall be the perfect holiday," she had said. "Whatever the future may hold for us, we will have this month together without visitors, without any shadows."

They were tossed in Portland race; they steamed across the West Bay over a sea smooth and bright as a steel mirror. They dropped their anchor at Dartmouth. They rounded the Start on the next day and crossed the Bar of Salcombe harbor under the shadow of Bolt Head on just such an evening of sunset as that which the poet fixed in a few lines of deathless verse. Cynthia stood with her arm through Harry's, as very slowly with the lead going in the bows he set the boat over the shallows.

"Sunset and evening star," Cynthia quoted.

"And one clear call for me," Harry Rames continued and abruptly broke off like a guilty person who has spoken without thought. Cynthia walked to the end of the bridge. After all, this cruise had made a difference to Harry. She consoled herself by the reflection. He had recovered something of his buoyancy of spirits since he had trodden the planks of this little yacht and looked down from its flimsy bridge onto its narrow deck and tapering bow. He was interested in the boat, quick to induce her to give him of her best, and her bra.s.s shone like a woman's ornaments. They put out from Salcombe the next day, and keeping clear of Plymouth and Polperro and Fowey, heard the bell upon the Manacles in the afternoon and dropped anchor between the woods of Helford River. They stayed there for a day and made a pa.s.sage thence to Guernsey on a night of moonlight. Cynthia sat late upon the bridge while Rames in his great-coat kept the boat upon her course. Toward morning he came to her side and stooped over her.

"I thought you were asleep."

"No."

"Aren't you tired?"

"No."

"You were lying so still."

"Yes," said Cynthia. "I am storing this night up."

The swish and sparkle of the water along the boat's sides, the rattle of the chain as the helmsman spun the wheel, the quiet orders of her husband, the infinite peace of sky and sea, and the yacht like a jewel hung between them, were indeed to dwell long in Cynthia's memories.

For their holiday was at an end. A sailor was sent ash.o.r.e at Guernsey for the ship's letters and he brought them on board whilst Harry and Cynthia were at breakfast in the deck cabin. There was one for Rames with the Hickleton postmark stamped upon the envelope. Harry tore it open reluctantly.

"Carberley has resigned," he said. "There will be a meeting of the executive on Friday night to adopt young Burrell."

Cynthia looked out across the harbor.

"We ought to go back, oughtn't we?" she said slowly.

Harry glanced at his letter.

"It is not expected that the election will take place for five weeks,"

he answered.

Cynthia shook her head.

"We shall want all that time, Harry." Then she cried with a sudden vehemence. "You have got to win this fight, Harry. So much hangs on it for you and me."

"I know, Cynthia," he answered.

"More than you know."

Harry rose from his chair.

"I'll give orders. We will steam back to Southampton at once. But it's a pity, isn't it? Old Carberley might have waited for another month. I am sorry."

"So am I," said Cynthia. Her eyes had wandered from him and were once more fixed upon the shipping in the harbor. Her face had grown white.

"More sorry than you can know."

A little white dinghy, gay with a sailor in a white jersey and a red cap, was just leaving the side of a big yacht moored across the water.

The picture of that little boat was fixed for life in Cynthia's recollections. It had nothing to do with her, she never knew who sailed in the yacht, or on what business the boat put off to sh.o.r.e.

But the picture of it was vivid to her long after important memories had grown altogether dim.

The fight for the Hickleton Division was memorable in the political history of that year. From first to last it was Rames's fight. The candidate was young, and a halting speaker, and unknown to the const.i.tuency. But he lived in Rames's house and when he appeared upon a platform he appeared with Rames at his side. When he spoke he uttered the words which Rames had prepared, and when he had finished Rames was on his legs to fill up the deficiencies and whip the a.s.sembly to a fire of enthusiasm. From the great guns of his own party no a.s.sistance came. Indeed, most of them would have been well pleased had the seat not been won. For in the forefront of his programme Mr.

William Burrell put hostility to the land bill. The two men left the white house early in the morning to return there late at night. For five weeks the lights of Rames's motor flashed on the hedges of the country roads in Warwickshire, and the const.i.tuency was won. The result was declared at noon, and half an hour later Mr. William Burrell, M.P., a slim, fair young gentleman with a small gift of flippancy, made his one memorable speech in the big room of the club.

"Gentlemen," he said, "the British public, as a whole, is indifferent to politics. It wakes up to be sure at the time of an election. But if I were asked to define politics in relation to the British public I should define it as a spasm of pain recurring once in every four or five years. What, then, is it which arouses the enthusiasm of which I am a witness? What is it which achieves these triumphs? Need I say? It is personality. Character--that's what you want in public life--and now, gentlemen, you have got it."

The speech was received with a very tornado of laughter. Rames turned to his wife who sat by him on the little raised platform at the end of the room.

"I told you he wasn't a fool," he said, and Mr. Arnall, who had come over from Ludsey, cried out with a chuckle of delight that he had now a companion speech to match the famous one of Taylor the democrat.

"You won't go back to London until to-morrow, will you?" said Rames to young Burrell. "It's best not to hurry away the moment you've won the seat."

They returned accordingly to the white house, and when the two men were left by Cynthia to their wine after dinner, Rames turned inquisitively to his guest.

"I have noticed a change in you, Burrell, during these five weeks. You came into the contest as though it was a joke, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," said Burrell, blushing.

"And though you laughed at it again to-day, as a matter of fact it ceased to be a joke very quickly."

Burrell agreed. "Very quickly."

Rames fetched a box of cigars from the sideboard.

"Now light a cigar," he said, "and tell me just as clearly as you can what brought about the change, and what this election really means to you."

Mr. William Burrell, M.P., shied at the proposal.

"Oh, I say, Rames," he began, but Rames cut him short.

"I really want to hear," he said earnestly. "I ask for a particular reason."

Burrell lit his cigar. The contest had impressed him deeply. But like most men he was shy of revealing any strength of feeling. The eager eyes of Rames, however, kept him to his task. He looked back over the five weeks, gathering up his little sheaf of recollections.