I found my aunt almost in tears.
“What has happened?” she cried. “What have we done that we should be punished in this awful way? And to think that the blow fell in this house? Caerlaverock—we all—thought Mr. Vennard so strange last night, and Lady Lavinia told me that Mr. Cargill was perfectly horrible. I suppose it must be the heat and the strain of the session. And that poor Lord Mulross, who was always so wise, should be stricken down at this crisis!”
I did not say that I thought Mulross’s accident a merciful dispensation. I was far more afraid of him than of all the others, for if with his reputation for sanity he chose to run amok, he would be taken seriously. He was better in bed than affixing a flea to Von Kladow’s ear.
“Caerlaverock was with the Prime Minister this morning,” my aunt went on. “He is going to make a statement in the Lords tomorrow to try to cover Mr. Vennard’s folly. They are very anxious about what Mr. Cargill will do today. He is addressing the National Convention of Young Liberals at Oldham this afternoon, and though they have sent him a dozen telegrams they can get no answer. Caerlaverock went to Downing Street an hour ago to get news.”
There was the sound of an electric brougham stopping in the square below, and we both listened with a premonition of disaster. A minute later Caerlaverock entered the room, and with him the Prime Minister. The cheerful, eupeptic countenance of the latter was clouded with care. He shook hands dismally with my aunt, nodded to me, and flung himself down on a sofa.
“The worst has happened,” Caerlaverock boomed solemnly. “Cargill has been incredibly and infamously silly.” He tossed me an evening paper.
One glance convinced me that the Convention of Young Liberals had had a waking-up. Cargill had addressed them on what he called the true view of citizenship. He had dismissed manhood suffrage as an obsolete folly. The franchise, he maintained, should be narrowed and given only to citizens, and his definition of citizenship was military training combined with a fairly high standard of rates and taxes. I do not know how the Young Liberals received his creed, but it had no sort of success with the Prime Minister.
“We must disavow him,” said Caerlaverock.
“He is too valuable a man to lose,” said the Prime Minister. “We must hope that it is only a temporary aberration. I simply cannot spare him in the House.”
“But this is flat treason.”
“I know, I know. It is all too horrible, and utterly unexpected. But the situation wants delicate handling, my dear Caerlaverock. I see nothing for it but to give out that he was ill.”
“Or drunk?” I suggested.
The Prime Minister shook his head sadly. “I fear it will be the same thing. What we call illness the ordinary man will interpret as intoxication. It is a most regrettable necessity, but we must face it.”
The harassed leader rose, seized the evening paper, and departed as swiftly as he had come. “Remember, illness,” were his parting words. “An old heart trouble, which is apt to affect his brain. His friends have always known about it.”
I walked home, and looked in at the Club on my way. There I found Deloraine devouring a hearty tea and looking the picture of virtuous happiness.
“Well, this is tremendous news,” I said, as I sat down beside him.
“What news?” he asked with a start.
“This row about Vennard and Cargill.”
“Oh, that! I haven’t seen the papers today. What’s it all about?” His tone was devoid of interest.
Then I knew that something of great private moment had happened to Tommy.
“I hope I may congratulate you,” I said.
Deloraine beamed on me affectionately. “Thanks very much, old man. Things came all right, quite suddenly, you know. We spent most of the time at the Alvanleys together, and this morning in the Park she accepted me. It will be in the papers next week, but we mean to keep it quiet for a day or two. However, it was your right to be told—and, besides, you guessed.”
I remember wondering, as I finished my walk home, whether there could not be some connection between the stroke of Providence which had driven three Cabinet Ministers demented and that gentler touch which had restored Miss Claudia Barriton to good sense and a reasonable marriage.
IV
The next week was an epoch in my life. I seemed to live in the centre of a Mad Tea-party, where everyone was convinced of the madness, and yet resolutely protested that nothing had happened. The public events of those days were simple enough. While Lord Mulross’s ankle approached convalescence, the hives of politics were humming with rumours. Vennard’s speech had dissolved his party into its parent elements, and the Opposition, as nonplussed as the Government, did not dare as yet to claim the recruit. Consequently he was left alone till he should see fit to take a further step. He refused to be interviewed, using blasphemous language about our free Press; and mercifully he showed no desire to make speeches. He went down to golf at Littlestone, and rarely showed himself in the House. The earnest young reformer seemed to have adopted not only the creed but the habits of his enemies.
Mr. Cargill’s was a hard case. He returned from Oldham, delighted with himself and full of fight, to find awaiting him an urgent message from the Prime Minister. His chief was sympathetic and kindly. He had long noticed that the Home Secretary looked fagged
