sure to be beaten?"

"You think that's the case?"

Eustace repeated Mr. Stark's opinions, and what he had heard from
Quarrier. It seemed to cost William an effort to fix his mind on the
question; but at length he admitted that the contest would probably be
a very close cue, even granting that the Conservatives secured a good
candidate.

"That's as much as to say," observed his brother, "that the Liberals
stand to win, as things are. Now, there seems to be no doubt that
Liversedge would gladly withdraw in favour of a better man. What I want
you to do is to set this thing in train for me. I am in earnest."

"You astonish me! I can't reconcile such an ambition with"----

"No, no; of course not." Glazzard spoke with unwonted animation. "You
don't know what my life is and has been. Look I must do something to
make my blood circulate, or I shall furnish a case for the coroner one
of these mornings. I want excitement. I have taken up one thing after
another, and gone just far enough to understand that there's no hope of
reaching what I aimed at--superlative excellence; then the thing began
to nauseate me. I'm like poor Jackson, the novelist, who groaned to me
once that for fifteen years the reviewers had been describing his books
as 'above the average.' In whatever I have undertaken the results were
'above the average,' and that's all. This is damned poor consolation
for a man with a temperament like mine!"

His voice broke down. He had talked himself into a tremor, and the
exhibition of feeling astonished his brother, who--as is so often the
case between brothers--had never suspected what lay beneath the surface
of Eustace's _dilettante_ life.

"I can enter into that," said the elder, slowly. "But do you imagine
that in politics you have found your real line?"

"No such thing. But it offers me a chance of _living_ for a few years.
I don't flatter myself that I could make a figure in the House of
Commons; but I want to sit there, and be in the full current of
existence. I had never dreamt of such a thing until Stark suggested it.
But he's a shrewd fellow, and he has guessed my need."

"What about the financial matter?" asked William, after reflection.

"I see no insuperable difficulty. You, I understand, are in no position
to help me?"

"Oh, I won't say that," interrupted the other. "A few hundreds will
make no difference to me. I suppose you see your way for the ordinary
expenses of life?"

"With care, yes. I'