porter
of my views, and, if I succeed in that, I hope you will become a
supporter of my ambitions."

"What are they, just now?"

"Your letter contained a suggestion; whether you intended it or not, I
don't know. Why shouldn't I be the man Lady Ogram is looking for--the
future Liberal member for Hollingford?"

His companion gazed at a far point of the landscape.

"That is perhaps not an impossible thing," she said, meditatively.
"More unlikely things have come to pass."

"Then it does seem to you unlikely?"

"I think we won't discuss it just now.--You see, from here, the plan of
the gardens and the park. Perhaps you would like to walk there a
little, before going back to Hollingford?"

This was a dismissal, and Dyce accepted it. They went downstairs
together, and in the hall parted, with more friendliness on Constance's
side than she had hitherto shown. Dyce did not care to linger in the
grounds. He strolled awhile about the village, glancing over the
pamphlet with its report of last year's business at the mill, and the
local improvements consequent upon it, then returned on foot to
Hollingford, where he arrived with an excellent appetite for dinner.

CHAPTER VI

Wind and rain interfered with Lashmar's project for the early morning.
He had meant to ramble about the town for an hour before going out to
Shawe. Unable to do this, he bought half-a-dozen newspapers, and read
all the leading articles and the political news with close attention.
As a rule, this kind of study had little attraction for him; he was
anything but well-informed on current politics; he understood very
imperfectly the British constitution, and had still less insight into
the details of party organisation and conflict. All that kind of thing
he was wont to regard as unworthy of his scrutiny. For him, large
ideas, world-embracing theories, the philosophy of civilisation. Few
Englishmen had a smaller endowment of practical ability; few, on the
other hand, delighted as he did in speculative system, or could grasp
and exhibit in such lucid entirety hypothetical laws. Much as he talked
of science, he was lacking in several essentials of the scientific
mind; he had neither patience to collect and observe facts, nor
conscientiousness in reasoning upon them; prejudice directed his every
thought, and egoism pervaded all his conclusions. Excelling in
speciousness, it was natural that he should think success as a
politician within his easy reac