"I won a moral victory there each time, Lady Chelmer."
"How so, sir?" put in the Marquis. "Your opponent increased the
Government majority--"
"And my reputation. A tiresome twaddler. Unfortunately," and he smiled
again, "two moral victories are as bad as a defeat. On the other hand,
a defeat at a bye-election equals a victory at a general. You play a
solo--and on your own trumpet." A burst of cheering rounded off these
remarks. This time Amber did not even inquire what it indicated--she
was almost content to take it as an endorsement of Walter Bassett's
epigrams. But Lord Woodham eagerly improved the situation. "A fine
stroke that," he said, "but a batsman outside a team doesn't play the
game."
"It will be a good time for the country, Lord Woodham," Mr. Bassett
returned quietly, "when people cease to regard the Parliamentary
session as a cricket match, one side trying to bowl over or catch out
the other. But then England always _has_ been a sporting nation."
"Ah, you allow some good in the old country," said Lady Chelmer,
pleased. "Look at the trouble we all take to come here to encourage
the dear boys;" and the words ended with a tired sigh.
"Yes, of course, that is the side on which they need encouragement,"
he rejoined drily. "Majuba was lost on the playing-field of Lord's."
There was a moment of shocked surprise. Lady Chelmer, herself a martyr
to the religion of sport thus blasphemed--of which she understood
as little as of any other religion--hastily tried to pour tea on the
troubled waters. But they had been troubled too deeply. For full
eight minutes the top of the drag became a political platform for
Marquis-Ministerial denunciations of Mr. Gladstone, to a hail of
repartee from the profane young man.
At the end of those eight minutes--when Lady Chelmer was at last able
to reinsinuate tea into the discussion--Miss Amber Roan realised with
a sudden shock that she had not "chipped in" once, and that "poor
Walter Bassett" had commanded her ear for all that time without
pouring into it a single compliment, or, indeed, addressing to it
any observation whatever. For the first time since her debut in the
Milwaukee parlour at the age of five, this spoiled daughter of the
dollar had lost sight of herself. As they walked towards the tea-tent,
through the throng of clergymen and parasols and tanned men with
field-glasses, and young bloods and pretty girls, she noted uneasily
that his eyes wandered from her to these types of English beauty,
these flower-faces under witching hats. Indeed, he had led her out of
the way to plough past a row of open carriages. "The shortest cut," he
said, "is past the prettiest woman."
But he had to face her at the tea-table, where she blocked his view of
the tables beyond and plied him with strawberries and smiles under the
sullen glances of the Hon. Tolshunt Darcy and the timid cough of her
chaperon.
"I wonder you waste your time on the silly elections," she said. "We
don't take much stock in Senators in America."
"It's just because M.P.'s are at such a discount that I want to get
in. In the realm of the blind the one-eyed is a king."
"They must be blind not to let you in," she answered with equal
frankness.
"No, they see too well, if you mean the voters. They've got their eye
on the price of their vote."
"What!" she cried. "You can't buy votes in England!"
"Oh, can't you--"
"But I'm sure I read about it in the English histories--it was all
abolished."
"A good many things were abolished by the Decalogue even earlier,"
he replied grimly. "Half an hour before the poll closed I could have
bought a thousand votes at a shilling each."
"Well, that seems reasonable enough," said Lady Chelmer.
"It was beyond my pocket."
"What! Fifty pounds?" cried Amber, incredulously.
The blush that followed was hers, not his. "But what became of the
thousand votes?" she asked hurriedly.
He laughed. "Half an hour before the poll closed they had gone down to
sixpence apiece--like fish that wouldn't keep."
"My! And were they all wasted?"
"No. My rival bought them up. _Vide_ the newspapers--'the polling was
unusually heavy towards the close.'"
"Really!" intervened Lady Chelmer. "Then at that rate you can unseat
him for bribery."
"At that rate--or higher," he replied drily. "To unseat another is
even more expensive than to seat oneself."
"Why, it seems all a question of money," said Miss Amber Roan,
naively.