Troubles
be--excommunicated! This hot weather takes it out of me a little, but
I'm very well and not at all discouraged; so don't think it. To tell
you the truth, I've been feeling anxious to hear more in detail from
you about this Hollingford enterprise. Have you serious hopes?"

"I hardly think I shall be elected the first time," Dyce answered,
speaking with entire frankness. "But it'll be experience, and may open
the way for me."

"Parliament," mused the vicar, "Parliament! To be sure, we must have
Members; it's our way of doing things, of governing the country. And if
you really feel apt for that--"

He paused dreamily. Dyce, still under the impulse of softened feelings,
spoke as he seldom did, very simply, quietly, sincerely.

"I believe, father, that I am not _un_fit for it. Politics, it's true,
don't interest me very strongly, but I have brains enough to get the
necessary knowledge, and I feel that I shall do better work in a
prominent position of that kind than if I went on tutoring or took to
journalism. As you say, we must have representatives, and I should not
be the least capable, or the least honest. I find I can speak fairly
well; I find I can inspire people with confidence in me. And, without
presumption, I don't think the confidence is misplaced."

"Well, that's something," said the vicar, absently. "But you talk as if
politics were a profession one could live by. I don't yet understand--"

"How I'm going to live. Nor do I. I'll tell you that frankly. But Lady
Ogram knows my circumstances, and none the less urges me on. It may be
taken for granted that she has something in view; and, after giving a
good deal of thought to the matter, I see no valid reason why I should
refuse any assistance she chooses to offer me. The case would not be
without precedent. There is nothing dishonourable--"

Dyce drifted into verbosity. At the beginning, he had lost from sight
the impossibility of telling the whole truth about his present position
and the prospects on which he counted; he spoke with relief, and would
gladly have gone on unbosoming himself. Strong and deep-rooted is the
instinct of confession. Unable to ease his conscience regarding outward
circumstances, he turned at length to the question of his intellectual
attitude.

"Do you remember, when I was here last, I spoke to you of a French book
I had been reading, a sociological work? As I told you, it had a great
influence on my mind. It helped to set