the present Parliament.
Such intention lay dormant in the background of his mind, but he had
not seen many Irish Nationalists before he was effervescing with
rhetoric suitable for the need of the election, and he was sometimes
puzzled to determine whether he was false or true.

Driving through Dublin from the steamer, he met Frank Escott. They
shouted simultaneously to their carmen to stop.

"Home to London. I've just come from Cashel. I went to try to effect
some sort of reconciliation with Mount Rorke; but--and you, where are
you going?"

"I'm going to Cashel. I'm going to contest the town in the Parnellite
interest."

Each pair of eyes was riveted on the other. For both men thought of
the evening when Mike had received the letter notifying that Lady
Seeley had left him five thousand a year, and Frank had read in
the evening paper that Lady Mount Rorke had given birth to a son.
Frank was, as usual, voluble and communicative. He dilated on the
painfulness of the salutations of the people he had met on the
way going from the station to Mount Rorke; and, instead of walking
straight in, as in old times, he had to ask the servant to take
his name.

"Burton, the old servant who had known me since I was a boy, seemed
terribly cut up, and he was evidently very reluctant to speak the
message. 'I'm very sorry, Mr. Frank,' he said, 'but his lordship says
he is too unwell to see any one to-day, sir; he is very sorry, but if
you would write' ... If I would write! think of it, I who was once
his heir, and used the place as if it were mine! Poor old Burton
was quite overcome. He tried to ask me to come into the dining-room
and have some lunch. If I go there again I shall be asked into the
servants' hall. And at that moment the nurse came, wheeling the baby
in the perambulator through the hall, going out for an airing. I
tried not to look, but couldn't restrain my eyes, and the nurse
stopped and said, 'Now then, dear, give your hand to the gentleman,
and tell him your name.' The little thing looked up, its blue eyes
staring out of its sallow face, and it held out the little putty-like
hand. Poor old Burton turned aside, he couldn't stand it any longer,
and walked into the dining-room."

"And how did you get away?" asked Mike, who saw his friend's
misfortune in the light of an exquisite chapter in a novel. "How sad
the old place must have seemed to you!"

"You are thinking how you could put it in a book--how brutal you
are