country can go on year after year paying its
tribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attack
them as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long as
Parliament and the Cabinet is made up of them and their hangers on."

Wharton looked at him brightly, but silently, making a little assenting
inclination of the head. He was not surprised that anything should pass
Wilkins's comprehension, and he was determined to give him no opening
for holding forth.

"Well, we'll let you alone," said Bennett. "You'll have very little time
to get off in. We'll make your excuses, Mr. Wharton. You may be sure
everybody is so pleased with your speech we shall find them all in a
good temper. It was grand!--let me congratulate you again. Good-night--I
hope you'll get your poacher off!"

The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;--Molloy,
with an eager business reference to the order of the day for
Saturday,--"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everything
to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"--Casey, with the
off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his
benevolence mistaken for servility,--and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and
as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been read
in the manner of the last two, that although this young man had just
made a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far,
they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before they
must. In truth, both were already jealous of him; whereas Molloy,
absorbed in the business of the congress, cared for nothing except to
know whether in the next two days' debates Wharton would show himself as
good a chairman as he was an orator; and Bennett, while saying no word
that he did not mean, was fully conscious of an inner judgment, which
pronounced five minutes of Edward Hallin's company to be worth more to
him than anything which this brilliant young fellow could do or say.

* * * * *

Wharton saw them out, then came back and threw himself again into his
chair by the window. The venetian blinds were not closed, and he looked
out on a wide and handsome street of tall red-brick houses and shops,
crowded with people and carriages, and lit with a lavishness of gas
which overcame even the February dark and damp. But he noticed nothing,
and even the sensation of his triumph was passing off. He was onc