gies Malham had plunged into politics, and here
success had been more rapid. As an apt and powerful speaker he was much
in request, and his circle of influential acquaintances grew apace. He
was asked to dinner, on visits to country houses where he was
entertained with cordiality, as a _quid pro quo_ for a speech at the
County Hall. Politicians began to say to him with a smile: "We must
have you in the House, Malham." "I shall be speaking for _you_ another
day, Malham!" "A man like you, Malham, ought to be in the Cabinet."
Steadily, slowly, the conviction had generated that in politics lay his
best hope of success.

But he must have money. Even in the days of paid members a man without
private means was handicapped in the race. Once again he could not be
content to be a unit in a crowd. He wished to be known; to make himself
felt. To do this it would be necessary to entertain, to have a home of
which he could be proud. A home, and--a wife.

At this point Malham's hard face would soften into the tender, humorous
smile which was reserved for but one person on earth--for Celia Bevan, a
high school mistress to whom he had been engaged for five long years.
Pew of his friends, and none of his acquaintances, had heard of his
engagement, for Malham was a secretive man, and Celia was not in his own
set. He had met her on a fishing holiday when they happened to be
staying in the same small inn, and for the first and only time in his
life had been carried away on a wave of impulse.

Five years ago, and--this was the extraordinary thing!--his heart had
never regretted the madness. Celia was poor, unknown, getting
perilously near thirty, but there was an ageless charm about Celia, an
ever-new, ever-changing, ever-lovable charm, which held him captive,
despite the cold remonstrances of his brain. Nowadays he met dozens of
wealthy and distinguished women, but no duchess in her purple had for
him the charm of Celia in her shabby blouses, seated in her shabby
lodging, wrestling with the everlasting pile of exercise books.

She loved him--heavens! how she loved him. There was nothing tepid
about Celia. Even eight years' teaching at a high school had been
powerless to beat down her individuality, or damp the ardour of her
spirit. She loved him with a passion which was her very being, and he
loved her in return as devotedly as it was in his nature to love. She
was his mate, the one woman in the world who could understan