levate a simple legislative attempt into a good faction fight. He
had so mastered his tricks of conjuring that no one could get to the
bottom of them, and had assumed a look of preternatural gravity which
made many young Members think that Sir Timothy was born to be a king
of men.

There were no doubt some among his older supporters who felt their
thraldom grievously. There were some lords in the Upper House and
some sons of the lords in the Lower,--with pedigrees going back far
enough for pride,--who found it irksome to recognise Sir Timothy as
a master. No doubt he had worked very hard, and had worked for them.
No doubt he knew how to do the work, and they did not. There was
no other man among them to whom the lead could be conveniently
transferred. But yet they were uncomfortable,--and perhaps a little
ashamed.

It had arisen partly from this cause, that there had been something
of a counter-reaction at the last general election. When the Houses
met, the Ministers had indeed a majority, but a much lessened
majority. The old Liberal constituencies had returned to an
expression of their real feeling. This reassertion of the progress
of the tide, this recovery from the partial ebb which checks the
violence of every flow, is common enough in politics; but at the
present moment there were many who said that all this had been
accelerated by a feeling in the country that Sir Timothy was hardly
all that the country required as the leader of the country party.

CHAPTER XXII

The Duke in His Study

It was natural that at such a time, when success greater than had
been expected had attended the efforts of the Liberals, when some
dozen unexpected votes had been acquired, the leading politicians of
that party should have found themselves compelled to look about them
and see how these good things might be utilised. In February they
certainly had not expected to be called to power in the course of
the existing Session. Perhaps they did not expect it yet. There was
still a Conservative majority,--though but a small majority. But the
strength of the minority consisted, not in the fact that the majority
against them was small, but that it was decreasing. How quickly does
the snowball grow into hugeness as it is rolled on,--but when the
change comes in the weather how quickly does it melt, and before
it is gone become a thing ugly, weak, and formless! Where is the
individual who does not assert to himself that he would b