of the life I was leading. I've worked at the bar
pretty hard for fifteen years now, and I've been in the House since the
general election. I've been earning two thousand a year, I've got nearly
four thousand of my own, and I've never spent much more than half my
income. I wondered if it was worth while to spend eight hours a day
settling the sordid quarrels of foolish people, and another eight hours
in the farce of governing the nation.'

'Why do you call it that?'

Dick Lomas shrugged his shoulders scornfully.

'Because it is. A few big-wigs rule the roost, and the rest of us are
only there to delude the British people into the idea that they're a
self-governing community.'

'What is wrong with you is that you have no absorbing aim in politics,'
said Alec gravely.

'Pardon me, I am a suffragist of the most vehement type,' answered Dick,
with a thin smile.

'That's the last thing I should have expected you to be,' said Mrs.
Crowley, who dressed with admirable taste. 'Why on earth have you taken
to that?'

Dick shrugged his shoulders.

'No one can have been through a parliamentary election without
discovering how unworthy, sordid, and narrow are the reasons for which
men vote. There are very few who are alive to the responsibilities that
have been thrust upon them. They are indifferent to the importance of
the stakes at issue, but make their vote a matter of ignoble barter. The
parliamentary candidate is at the mercy of faddists and cranks. Now, I
think that women, when they have votes, will be a trifle more narrow,
and they will give them for motives that are a little more sordid and a
little more unworthy. It will reduce universal suffrage to the absurd,
and then it may be possible to try something else.'

Dick had spoken with a vehemence that was unusual to him. Alec watched
him with a certain interest.

'And what conclusions have you come to?'

For a moment he did not answer, then he gave a deprecating smile.

'I feel that the step I want to take is momentous for me, though I am
conscious that it can matter to nobody else whatever. There will be a
general election in a few months, and I have made up my mind to inform
the whips that I shall not stand again. I shall give up my chambers in
Lincoln's Inn, put up the shutters, so to speak, and Mr. Richard Lomas
will retire from active life.'

'You wouldn't really do that?' cried Mrs. Crowley.

'Why not?'

'In a month complete idleness will simply bore