"QUI PERD, GAGNE."
Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of the
poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and others,
to direct the inclinations of my constituents into the proper channels.
The tumult increased as the evening advanced. More snow had fallen
during the afternoon, and outlying electors were being conveyed to the
scene of action with the utmost difficulty. People were voting at seven
o'clock who had intended to get it done and be home by six; and as time
wore on it was seen that there would be a desperate rush of business
right up till closing time.
Every one was in high spirits. That potent factor in British politics,
the electioneering egg, had been entirely superseded by the snowball,
and the youth of Stoneleigh, massed in the public square outside the
Town Hall, were engaged, with a lofty indifference to party distinctions
that would have been sublime if it had not been so painful, in an
untrammelled bombardment of all who crossed their path.
At length the Cathedral chimed out the hour of eight, and the poll
closed. Cash hurried up to me.
"It's going to be a desperately close thing," he said. "The counting
will begin at once, in the Mayor's room on the first floor of the Town
Hall. The outlying boxes should be in by half-past nine at the latest,
and the result should be out by about eleven. You'll come and watch the
counting, I suppose."
But there are limits to human endurance.
"Mr Cash," I said, buttoning my overcoat up to my ears as a preliminary
to an encounter with the budding statesmen outside, "I think I have got
to the end of my day's work. Nothing can affect the result now, and I'm
going home--that's flat. Good-night!"
"Surely you're coming to hear the result announced," wailed Cash.
"There's the vote of thanks to the Returning Officer. You'll have to
propose that--or second it," he added grimly.
"Well, I'll see. But I think, now that the poll is closed, that my duty
lies elsewhere," I said. "If I am really wanted, send word by Mr
Fordyce."
Five minutes later, and I was once more at the Cathedral Arms. The
ground floor of that hostelry hummed like a hive, and the bar and
smoking-room were filled to overflowing with supporters of both sides,
who were prudently avoiding all risk of disappointment by celebrating
the result of the election in advance.
I pushed my way through a group of enthusiastic patriots--many of them
in that condition once described to me by a sporting curate as "holding
two or three firkins apiece"--who crowded round me, fired with a desire
to drink success to the British Constitution--a rash shibboleth, by the
way, for gentlemen in their situation to attempt to enunciate at all--at
my expense, and hastened upstairs to our wing.
In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but
I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.
"Will you tell Mrs Inglethwaite or Miss Rubislaw that I have come in,
please?" I said, and turned into the sitting-room.
The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is
always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of
little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now
that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more,
I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I
had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I
was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening
anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. In a few
minutes a too-wakeful mind struggled with an exhausted body. I wondered
dimly when somebody would come and tell me how Philly was. Perhaps----