ented by the curiosity of a
comparative stranger, who drinks in every detail of a situation typical
of the country in which he has come to dwell. He studied the various
faces on the platform attentively, and wondered whether Judge Swigart
were now convinced of the existence of the class feeling which he had
so blandly belittled in the joint debate; but the defeated candidate,
like the majority of his companions, had assumed a studied and
enigmatic expression. So great was the tension that no one ventured to
look at his neighbour. In a way they were all sharers in the
humiliation of Cobbens, and co-recipients of the people's scorn. He
saw Felicity and Mrs. Parr putting their heads together in whispered
comment. The bishop stirred uneasily and glanced with irritation at
the speaker's back, as if he would fain have bid him make an end. In a
moment of pardonable weakness the mayor's lips parted in the briefest
of smiles. Then he took out his handkerchief to conceal his emotion,
and having propped his chin upon the palm of his hand, he gazed
abstractedly at the floor.

The President, twitching in his chair, appeared well-nigh unable to
control his nervousness. He grasped the arms of his seat convulsively,
he polished his glasses, he screwed up his eyes, he smiled, he frowned.
Watching him with intense interest, Leigh entirely forgot the speaker.
He had not imagined the President's build so powerful. There was a
brute strength in the neck and shoulders that would have been no
inadequate endowment for a pugilist; yet this suggestion was offset by
an expression of which his pictures had given scarcely a hint. It was
not difficult to understand how his enthusiastic biographer had been
carried away by that probity and sweetness, so that he made both
himself and his hero ridiculous and aroused inextinguishable laughter
among the arbiters of good taste. The subject was one that tempted men
to violent opinions on one side or the other.

Meanwhile the speech continued, but now the listeners began to
appreciate a curious change in the temper of the speaker and of his
tormentors. At first he had stood before them like one hypnotised,
unable to save himself by shortening the oration he had prepared. By
little and little, however, the innate power of the man asserted
itself, malign and hateful as ever, but no less surely effective. His
eyes began to glisten, his voice gained in volume and steadiness. He
gradually made hi