drive him into rash steps
he could ill afford, and had indeed been doing his best to avoid.
Meanwhile it was clear to him that the mistress of Alresford House had
taken an envious dislike to Marcella. How plain she had looked to-night
in spite of her gorgeous dress! and how intolerable Lord Alresford grew!

CHAPTER XII.

But what right had Wharton to be thinking of such irrelevant matters as
women and love-making at all? He had spoken of public worries to Lady
Selina. In reality his public prospects in themselves were, if anything,
improved. It was his private affairs that were rushing fast on
catastrophe, and threatening to drag the rest with them.

He had never been so hard pressed for money in his life. In the first
place his gambling debts had mounted up prodigiously of late. His
friends were tolerant and easy-going. But the more tolerant they were
the more he was bound to frequent them. And his luck for some time had
been monotonously bad. Before long these debts must be paid, and some of
them--to a figure he shrank from dwelling upon--were already urgent.

Then as to the _Clarion_, it became every week a heavier burden. The
expenses of it were enormous; the returns totally inadequate.
Advertisements were falling off steadily; and whether the working cost
were cut down, or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whose
letters from the strike district were being now universally read, were
put on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same. It was
becoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to be
met; so that Wharton's usual good temper now deserted him entirely as
soon as he had crossed the _Clarion_ threshold; bitterness had become
the portion of the staff, and even the office boys walked in gloom.

Yet, at the same time, withdrawing from the business, was almost as
difficult as carrying it on. There were rumours in the air which had,
already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern. Wharton,
indeed, saw no prospect whatever of selling except at ruinous loss.
Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not only
precipitated a number of his financial obligations; it would have been
politically, a dangerous confession of failure made at a very critical
moment. For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the
_Clarion_ had never been so important politically, never so much read by
the persons on whom Wharton's parliamentary future de