y's mother religiously preserved, cut out and tied
together with a ribbon, in the innermost drawer of a favourite cabinet.
But it had been a barren, or almost a barren triumph, for in the order
of importance in Nick's history another incident had run it, as the
phrase is, very close: nothing less than the quick dissolution of the
Parliament in which he was so manifestly destined to give symptoms of a
future. He had not recovered his seat at the general election, for the
second contest was even sharper than the first and the Tories had put
forward a loud, vulgar, rattling, bullying, money-spending man. It was
to a certain extent a comfort that poor Sir Nicholas, who had been
witness of the bright hour, should have passed away before the darkness.
He died with all his hopes on his second son's head, unconscious of near
disappointment, handing on the torch and the tradition, after a long,
supreme interview with Nick at which Lady Agnes had not been present,
but which she knew to have been a thorough paternal dedication, an
august communication of ideas on the highest national questions (she had
reason to believe he had touched on those of external as well as of
domestic and of colonial policy) leaving on the boy's nature and manner
from that moment the most unmistakable traces. If his tendency to
reverie increased it was because he had so much to think over in what
his pale father had said to him in the hushed dim chamber, laying on him
the great mission that death had cut short, breathing into him with
unforgettable solemnity the very accents--Sir Nicholas's voice had been
wonderful for richness--that he was to sound again. It was work cut out
for a lifetime, and that "co-ordinating power in relation to detail"
which was one of the great characteristics of the lamented statesman's
high distinction--the most analytic of the weekly papers was always
talking about it--had enabled him to rescue the prospect from any shade
of vagueness or of ambiguity.

Five years before Nick Dormer went up to be questioned by the electors
of Crockhurst Peter Sherringham had appeared before a board of examiners
who let him off much less easily, though there were also some flattering
prejudices in his favour; such influences being a part of the copious,
light, unembarrassing baggage with which each of the young men began
life. Peter passed, however, passed high, and had his reward in prompt
assignment to small, subordinate, diplomatic duties in