lack of delicacy, say at once to crassness in the man's
intellect.

Mallinson began immediately to imagine himself in Drake's position, the
candidate for whom brass bands played, and hats went spinning into the
air. And it needed no conscious effort for one so agile in egotistical
leaps to spring thence to the fancy that Drake was a kind of vicarious
substitute for himself, doing his work, too, not without blemishes.

Ten days before the polling-day Fielding ran down from town, and attended
a meeting at the Town Hall, at which both Drake and Mallinson were to
speak. He sat on the platform by Clarice's side and paid some attention
to her manner during the evening. He noticed the colour mount in her
cheeks and her eyes kindle, as on first entering the room she looked down
upon the crowded floor. The chairs had been removed, and the audience
stood packed beneath the flaring gas-jets--artificers for the most part,
their white faces smeared and stained with the grime of their factories.
The roar of applause as Drake rose by the table swelled up to three
cheers in consonance, and a subsequent singing of 'For he's a jolly good
fellow' stirred even Fielding to enthusiasm. He noted that feeling of
enthusiasm as strange in himself, and had a thought in consequence that
such scenes were hardly of the kind to help Clarice to the rest she
needed. The hall for a moment became a sea of tossing handkerchiefs. He
took a glance at Clarice. She sat bent forward with parted lips and a
bosom that heaved. Fielding turned on his cold-water tap of flippancy.

'It's a bad omen,' said he, with a nod towards the waving handkerchiefs.
'They hang out flags of surrender.'

'Hardly,' she replied, with a smile. 'I can't recognise that the flags
are white'; and she added, 'I should like it less if they were. These men
are the workers.'

'The workers.' Fielding could hear Drake uttering the word in just the
same tone, and his compassion for Clarice deepened. Why? he asked
himself. The girl was undergoing not a jot more punishment than a not
over-rigid political justice would have meted out to her. The question
inexplicably raised to view a pair of the clearest blue eyes, laughing
from between the blackest of eyelashes. He promptly turned his attention
to the speaker at the table.

Drake commenced that night with an apology. It was necessary that he
should speak about himself. An utterly baseless story had, within the
last few days, and doubtless w