tus of redoubled
irony, men declared that he would be driven to enrol the speaker
among his colleagues, in spite of dishonoured bills and evil reports.
A man who could shake the thunderbolts like that must be paid to
shake them on the right side. It was of this man, and of his success,
that Lord Middlesex was envious, as he sat, wretched and respectable,
in his solitary study!

Mr Bott had left the House with Mr Palliser; and Vavasor, after
the count-out, was able to walk home by himself, and think of the
position which he had achieved. He told himself over and over again
that he had done a great thing in obtaining that which he now
possessed, and he endeavoured to teach himself that the price he
was paying for it was not too dear. But already there had come upon
him something of that feeling,--that terribly human feeling,--which
deprives every prize that is gained of half its value. The mere
having it robs the diamond of its purity, and mixes vile alloy with
the gold. Lord Middlesex, as he had floundered on into terrible
disaster, had not been a subject to envy. There had been nothing of
brilliance in the debate, and the Members had loomed no larger than
ordinary men at ordinary clubs. The very doorkeepers had hardly
treated them with respect. The great men with whose names the papers
are filled had sat silent, gloomy, and apparently idle. As soon as
a fair opportunity was given them they escaped out of the House, as
boys might escape from school. Everybody had rejoiced in the break-up
of the evening, except that one poor old lord who had worked so hard.
Vavasor had spent everything that he had to become a Member of that
House, and now, as he went alone to his lodgings, he could not but
ask himself whether the thing purchased was worth the purchase-money.

But his courage was still high. Though he was gloomy, and almost sad,
he knew that he could trust himself to fight out the battle to the
last. On the morrow he would go to Queen Anne Street, and would
demand sympathy there from her who had professed to sympathize with
him so strongly in his political desires. With her, at any rate, the
glory of his Membership would not be dimmed by any untoward knowledge
of the realities. She had only seen the play acted from the boxes;
and to her eyes the dresses would still be of silk velvet, and the
swords of bright steel.

CHAPTER XLVI

A Love Gift

When Alice heard of her cousin's success, and understood that he w