spiritual gifts, made him
friends in all camps. Bishops consulted him, the Socialists claimed him;
perhaps it was the East End children who possessed him most wholly.
Nevertheless, there was a fierce strain in him; he could be a fanatic,
even a hard fanatic, on occasion.

Marsham did not show much readiness to take up the reference to himself.
As he walked beside the others, his slender elegance, his handsome head,
and fashionable clothes marked him out from the rugged force of Barton,
the middle-class alertness of McEwart, the rubbed apostolicity of
Lankester. But the face was fretful and worried.

"Ferrier has not the smallest intention of going to the Lords!" he said,
at last--not without a touch of impatience.

"That's the party's affair."

"The party owes him a deal too much to insist upon anything against his
will."

"Does it!--_does_ it!" said Lankester. "Ferrier always reminds me of a
cat we possessed at home, who brought forth many kittens. She loved them
dearly, and licked them all over--tenderly--all day. But by the end of
the second day they were always dead. Somehow she had killed them all.
That's what Ferrier does with all our little Radical measures--loves 'em
all--and kills 'em all."

McEwart flushed.

"Well, it's no good talking," he said, doggedly; "we've done enough of
that! There will be a meeting of the Forward Club next week, and we
shall decide on our line of action."

"Broadstone will never throw him over." Lankester threw another glance
at Marsham. "You'll only waste your breath."

Lord Broadstone was the veteran leader of the party, who in the event of
victory at the polls would undoubtedly be Prime Minister.

"He can take Foreign Affairs, and go to the Lords in a blaze of glory,"
said McEwart. "But he's _impossible!_--as leader in the Commons. The
party wants grit--not dialectic."

Marsham still said nothing. The others fell to discussing the situation
in much detail, gradually elaborating what were, in truth, the first
outlines of a serious campaign against Ferrier's leadership. Marsham
listened, but took no active part in it. It was plain, however, that
none of the group felt himself in any way checked by Marsham's presence
or silence.

Presently Marsham--the debate in the House having fallen to levels of
dulness "measureless to man"--remembered that his mother had expressed a
wish that he might come home to dinner. He left the House, lengthening
his walk for exercise, by way