"I'm sorry," I said, "that you troubled to change your frocks. I didn't expect that you'd have to do that."

"Of course we had. Didn't you know we were in for an exam this morning?"

"I did know that; but I thought you'd have had on your very best so as to soften the Puffin's heart."

"The poor old Puffin," said Lalage, "wouldn't be any the wiser if we turned up in our night dresses. He thinks of nothing but parallaxes. Does he, Hilda?"

Hilda did not answer. She was wriggling her shoulders about, and was sitting bolt upright in her chair. She leaned back once and when she did so a spasm of acute pain distorted her face. It occurred to me that one of the three pins might have been jabbed in too far or not precisely in the right direction. Lalage could not fairly be blamed, for it must be difficult to regulate a pin thrust when a tram is in rapid motion, I did not like the idea of watching Hilda's sufferings during tea, so I cast about for the most delicate way of suggesting that she should be relieved. Lalage was beforehand with me.

"Turn round, Hilda," she said, "and I'll hook you up."

"Perhaps," I said, "I'd better ring and get a housemaid."

"What for?" said Lalage.

"I thought perhaps that Hilda might prefer to go to a bedroom. I don't matter, of course, but Selby-Harrison may be here at any moment."

"Selby-Harrison isn't coming. Turn round, Hilda, and do stand still."

A waiter came in just then with the tea, I regret to say that he grinned. I turned my back on him and looked out of the window.

"Selby-Harrison," said Lalage, "is on Trinity 3rd A., inside left, and there's a cup match on to-day, so of course he couldn't come."

"This," I said, "is a great disappointment to me. I've been looking forward for years to making Selby-Harrison's acquaintance, and every time I seem to be anywhere near it, something comes and snatches him away. I'm beginning to think that there isn't really any such person as Selby-Harrison."

Hilda giggled thickly. She seemed to be quite comfortable again. Lalage snubbed me severely.

"I must say for you," she said, "that when you choose to go in for pretending to be an ass you can be more funerally idiotic than any one I ever met. No wonder the Archdeacon said you'd be beaten in your election."

"Did he say that?"

"Yes. We were talking to him this morning, Hilda and I and Selby-Harrison, outside the exam hall. We told him we were going down to make speeches for you."

"Was it before or after you told him that he said I'd be beaten?"

"Before," said Lalage firmly.

"Oh, Lalage! How can you? You know——"

I interrupted Hilda because I did not want to have the harmony of my party destroyed by recrimination and argument.

"Suppose," I said, "that we have tea."

"I must say," said Lalage, "that you've collected a middling good show of cakes, hasn't he, Hilda?"

Hilda looked critically at the tea table. She was evidently an expert in cakes.

"You can't have got all those out of one shop," she said. "There isn't a place in Dublin that has so many varieties!"

"I'm glad you like the look of them. Which of you will pour out the tea?"

"Hilda's birthday was last month," said Lalage. "Mine isn't till July."

This settled the point of precedence. Hilda took her seat opposite the teapot.

"There are ices coming," I said a few minutes later, "twelve of them. I mention it in case——"

"Oh, that's all right," said Lalage. "We shall be able to manage the ices. There isn't really much in these cakes."

If Selby-Harrison had come there would, I think, have been cakes enough; but there would not have been any to spare. I only ate two myself. When we had finished the ices we gave ourselves to conversation.

"That Tithers man," said Lalage, "seems to be a fairly good sort."

"Is Tithers another name for the Puffin?"

"No," said Lalage. "Tithers is Joey P."

"He signed his letter Joseph P.," said Hilda, "so at first we called him that."

Titherington usually signs himself Joseph P. I inferred that he was Tithers.

"You liked him?" I said.

"In some ways he's rather an ass," said Lalage, "'and just at first I thought he was inclined to have too good an opinion of himself. But that was only his manner. In the end he turned out to be a fairly good sort. I thought he was going to kick up a bit when I asked him to sign the agreement, but he did it all right when I explained to him that he'd have to."

"Lalage," I said, "I'd like very much to see that agreement."

"Hilda has it. Hilda, trot out the agreement." Hilda trotted it out of a small bag which she carried attached to her waist by a chain. I opened it and read aloud:

"Memorandum of an agreement made this tenth day of February between the Members of the A.S.P.L., hereinafter called the Speakers, of the one part, and Joseph P. Titherington, election agent, of the other."

"I call that rather good," said Lalage.

"Very," I said, "Selby-Harrison did it, I suppose?"

"Of course," said Lalage.

"(1) The Speakers are to deliver for the said election agent . . . speeches before the tenth of March."

"I told Tithers to fill in the number of speeches he wanted," said Lalage, "but he seems to have forgotten."

"(2) The Speakers hereby agree to assign to the said election agent, his successors and assigns, and the said election agent hereby agrees to enjoy, the sole benefit of the above speeches in the British Empire.

"(3) When the demand for such speeches has evidently ceased the said election agent shall be at liberty——"

I paused. There was something which struck me as familiar about the wording of this agreement. I recollected suddenly that the Archdeacon had once consulted me about an agreement which ran very much on the same lines. It came from the office of a well-known publisher. The Archdeacon was at that time bringing out his "Lectures to Confirmation Candidates."

"Has Selby-Harrison," I asked, "been publishing a book?"

"No," said Lalage, "but his father has." "Ah," I said, "that accounts for this agreement form." "Quite so," said Lalage, "he copied it from that, making the necessary changes. Rather piffle, I call that part about enjoying the speeches in the British Empire. It isn't likely that Tithers would want to enjoy them anywhere else. But there's a good bit coming. Skip on to number eight." I skipped and then read again.

"(8) The Speakers agree that the said speeches shall be in no way a violation of existing copyright and the said agent agrees to hold harmless the said speakers from all suits, claims, and proceedings which may be taken on the ground that the said speeches contain anything libellous."

"That's important," said Lalage.

"It is," I said, "very. I notice that Selby-Harrison has a note at the bottom of the page to the effect that a penny stamp is required if the amount is over two pounds. He seems rather fond of that. I recollect he had it in the agreement he drew up for me."

"It wasn't in the original," said Lalage. "He put it in because we all thought it would be safer."

"You were right. After the narrow shave you had with the bishops you can't be too careful. And the amount is almost certain to be over two pounds. Even Vittie's character must be worth more than that."

"Vittie," said Lalage, "appears to be the very kind of man we want to get at. I've been reading his speeches."

"I expect," I said, "that you'll enjoy O'Donoghue too. But Vittie is to be your chief prey. I wonder Mr. Titherington didn't insist on inserting a clause to that effect in the agreement."

"Tither's hated signing it. I was obliged to keep prodding him on or he wouldn't have done it. Selby-Harrison said that either you or he must, so of course it had to be him. We couldn't go for you in any way because we'd promised to respect your scruples."

I recollected the telegram I had received just before leaving Lisbon.

"I wish," I said, "that I felt sure you had respected my scruples. What about Selby-Harrison's father? Has he been consulted?"

"Selby-Harrison isn't coming, only me and Hilda."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing he's in the Divinity School now."

"That needn't stop him," I said. "My constituency is full of parsons, priests, and Presbyterian ministers, all rampant. Selby-Harrison will be in good company. But how did he get into the Divinity School? I thought the Provost said he must take up medicine on account of that trouble with the bishops."

"Oh, that's all blown over long ago. And being a divinity student wasn't his only reason for not coming. The fact is his father lives down there."

"Ah," I said, "That's more serious."

"He wrote to his father and told him to be sure to vote for you. That was as far as he cared to go in the matter."

"It was very good of him to do so much. And now about your mother, Hilda. Has she given her consent?"

"Not quite," said Hilda. "But she hasn't forbidden me.

"We haven't told her," said Lalage.

"Lalage, you haven't respected my scruples and you promised you would. You promised in the most solemn way in a telegram which must have cost you twopence a word."

"We have respected them," said Lalage.

"You have not. My chief scruple was Hilda's mother."

"My point is that you haven't had anything to do with the business. We arranged it all with Tithers and you weren't even asked to give your consent. I don't see what more could have been done for your scruples."

"Hilda's mother might have been asked."

"I can't stop here arguing with you all afternoon," said Lalage. "Come on, Hilda."

"Don't go just yet. I promise not to mention Hilda's mother again."

"We can't possibly stay, can we, Hilda? We have our viva to-morrow."

"Viva!"

"Voce," said Lalage. "You must know what that means. The kind of exam you don't write."

I got viva into its natural connection with voce and grasped at Lalage's meaning.

"Part of the Jun. Soph. Ord.?" I said.

"Of course," said Lalage. "What else could it be?"

"In that case I mustn't keep you. You'll be wanting to look up your astronomy. But you must allow me to parcel up the rest of the cakes for you. I should like you to have them and you're sure to be hungry again before bedtime."

"Won't you want them yourself?"

"No, I won't. And even if I did I wouldn't eat them. It would hardly be fair to Mr. Titherington. He's doing his best for me and he'll naturally expect me to keep as fit as possible."

"Very well," said Lalage, "rather than to leave them here to rot or be eaten by mice we'll take them. Hilda, pack them up in that biscuit tin and take care that the creamy ones don't get squashed."

Hilda tried to pack them up, but the biscuit tin would not hold them all. We had not finished the wafers which it originally contained. I rang for the waiter and made him bring us a cardboard box. We laid the cakes in it very tenderly. We tied on the lid with string and then made a loop in the string for Hilda's hand. It was she who carried both the box and the biscuit tin.

"Good-bye," said Lalage. "We'll meet again on the twenty-first."

It was not until after they were gone that I understood why we should meet again on the twenty-first. That was the day of my first meeting in East Connor, and Lalage had promised to speak at it. I felt very uneasy. It was utterly impossible to guess at what might happen when Lalage appeared in the constituency. I sat down and wrote a letter to Canon Beresford. I did not expect him to do anything, but it relieved my mind to write. After all, it was his business, not mine, to look after Lalage. Three days later I got an answer from him, which said:

"I shall not be at all surprised, if Lalage turns out to be a good platform speaker. She has, I understand, had a good deal of practice in some college debating society and has acquired a certain fluency of utterance. She always had something to say, even as a child. I wish I could run up to County Down and hear her, but it is a long journey and the weather is miserably cold. The Archdeacon told me yesterday that you meant to employ her in this election of yours. He seemed to dislike the idea very much and wanted me to 'put my foot down.' (The phrase, I need scarcely say, is his.) I explained to him that if I put my foot down Lalage would immediately tread on it, which would hurt me and not even trip her. Besides, I do not see why I should. If Lalage finds that kind of thing amusing she ought to be allowed to enjoy it. You have my best wishes for your success with the turba Quiritium. I am glad, very, that it is you who have to face them, not I. I do not know anything in the world that I should dislike more."



CHAPTER XII

Titherington took rooms for me in the better of the two hotels in Ballygore and I went down there on the day on which he told me I ought to go. I had as travelling companion a very pleasant man, the only other occupant of the compartment in which I was. He was chatty and agreeable at first and did not so much as mention the general election. After we passed Drogheda his manner changed. He became silent, and when I spoke to him answered snappily. His face got more and more flushed. At last he asked me to shut the window beside me, which I did, although I wanted to keep it open. I noticed that he was wriggling in a curious way which reminded me of Hilda when her dress was fastened on with pins. He fumbled about a good deal with one of his hands which he had thrust inside his waistcoat. I watched him with great curiosity and discovered at last that he was taking his temperature with a clinical thermometer. Each time he took it he sighed and became more restless and miserable looking than before.

On the 19th of February I developed a sharp attack of influenza. Titherington flew to my side at once, which was the thing, of all possible things, that I most wanted him not to do. He aggravated my sufferings greatly by speaking as if my condition were my own fault. I was too feverish to argue coherently. All I could do was to swear at him occasionally. No man has any right to be as stupid as Titherington is. It is utterly ridiculous to suppose that I should undergo racking pains in my limbs, a violent headache and extreme general discomfort if I could possibly avoid it. Titherington ought to have seen this for himself. He did not. He scolded me and would, I am sure, have gone on scolding me until I cried if what he took for a brilliant idea had not suddenly occurred to him.

"It's an ill wind," he said cheerfully, "which can't be made to blow any good. I think I see my way to getting something out of this miserable collapse of yours. I'll call in McMeekin."

"If McMeekin is a doctor, get him. He may not be able to do me any good, but he'll give orders that I'm to be left quiet and that's all I want."

"McMeekin's no damned use as a doctor; but he'll——"

"Then get some one else. Surely he's not the only one there is."

"There are two others, but they're both sure to support you in any case, whereas McMeekin——"

The way Titherington was discussing my illness annoyed me. I interrupted him and tried my best to insult him.

"I don't want to be supported. I want to be cured. Not that any of them can do that. I simply can't and won't have another blithering idiot let loose at me. One's enough."

I thought that would outrage Titherington and drive him from my room. But he made allowances for my condition and refused to take offence.

"McMeekin," he said, "sets up to be a blasted Radical, and is Vittie's strongest supporter."

"In that case send for him at once. He'll probably poison me on purpose and then this will be over."

"He's not such an idiot as to do that. He knows that if anything happened to you we'd get another candidate."

Titherington's tone suggested that the other candidate would certainly be my superior and that Vittie's chances against me were better than they would be against any one else. I turned round with a groan and lay with my face to the wall. Titherington went on talking.

"If you give McMeekin a good fee," he said, "say a couple of guineas, he'll think twice about taking the chair at Vittie's meeting on the twenty-fourth. I don't see why he shouldn't pay you a visit every day from this to the election, and that, at two guineas a time, ought to shut his mouth if it doesn't actually secure his vote."

I twisted my neck round and scowled at Titherington. He left the room without shutting the door. I spent the next hour in hoping vehemently that he would get the influenza himself. I would have gone on hoping this if I had not been interrupted by the arrival of McMeekin. He did all the usual things with stethoscopes and thermometers and he asked me all the usual offensive questions. It seemed to me that he spent far more than the usual time over this revolting ritual. I kept as firm a grip on my temper as I could and as soon as he had finished asked him in a perfectly calm and reasonable tone to be kind enough to put me out of my misery at once with prussic acid. Instead of doing what I, asked or making any kind of sane excuse for refusing, he said he would telegraph to Dublin for a nurse. She could not, he seemed to think, arrive until the next day, so he said he would take a bed in the hotel and look after me himself during the night. This was more than I, or any one else, could stand. I saw the necessity for making a determined effort.

"I am," I said, "perfectly well. Except for a slight cold in the head which makes me a bit stupid there's nothing the matter with me. I intend to get up at once and go out canvassing. Would you mind ringing the bell and asking for some hot water?"

McMeekin rang the bell, muttering as he did so something about a temperature of 104 degrees. A redheaded maid with a freckled face answered the summons. Before I could say anything to her McMeekin gave orders that a second bed should be brought into my room and that she, the red-haired, freckled girl, should sit beside me and not take her eyes off me for a moment while he went home to get his bag. I forgot all about Titherington then and concentrated my remaining strength on a hope that McMeekin would get the influenza. It is one of the few diseases which doctors do get. I planned that when he got it I would search Ireland for red-headed girls with freckled faces, and pay hundreds of them, all I could collect in the four provinces, to sit beside him and not take their eyes off him while I went to get a bag. My bag, as I arranged, would be fetched by long sea from Tasmania.

That evening McMeekin and Titherington both settled down in my bedroom. I was so angry with them that I could not take in what they said to each other, though I was dimly conscious that they were discussing the election. I learned afterward that McMeekin promised to be present at my meeting on the 21st in order to hear Lalage speak. I suppose that the amount of torture he inflicted on me induced a mood of joyous intoxication in which he would have promised anything. I lay in bed and did my best, by breathing hard, to shoot germs from my lungs across the room at Titherington and McMeekin. Their talk, which must have lasted about eighteen hours, was interrupted at last by a tap at the door. The red-haired girl with a freckled face came in, carrying a loathsome looking bowl and a spoon which I felt certain was filthy dirty. McMeekin took them from her hands and approached me. In spite of my absolutely sickening disgust, I felt with a ferocious joy that my opportunity had at last come. McMeekin tried to persuade me to eat some sticky yellow liquid out of the bowl. I refused, of course. As I had foreseen, he began to shovel the stuff into my mouth with the spoon. Titherington came over to my bedside. He pretended that he came to hold me up while McMeekin fed me. In reality he came to gloat. But I had my revenge. I pawed McMeekin with my hands and breathed full into his face. I also clutched Titherington's coat and pawed him. After that I felt easier, for I began to hope that I had thoroughly infected them both. My recollections of the next day are confused. Titherington and McMeekin were constantly passing in and out of the room and at some time or other a strange woman arrived who paid a deference which struck me as perfectly ridiculous to McMeekin. To me she made herself most offensive. I found out afterward that she was the nurse whom McMeekin had summoned by telegraph. What she said to McMeekin or what he said to her I cannot remember. Of my own actions during the day I can say nothing certainly except this: I asked McMeekin, not once or twice, but every time I saw him, how long it took for influenza to develop its full strength in a man who had thoroughly imbibed the infection. McMeekin either would not or could not answer this simple question. He talked vague nonsense about periods of incubation, whereas I wanted to know the earliest date at which I might expect to see him and Titherington stricken down, I hated McMeekin worse than ever for his dogged stupidity.

The next day McMeekin said I was better, which showed me that Titherington was right in saying that he was no damned use as a doctor. I was very distinctly worse. I was, in fact, so bad that when the nurse insisted on arranging the bedclothes I burst into tears and sobbed afterward for many hours. That ought to have shown her that arranging bedclothes was particularly bad for me. But she was an utterly callous woman. She arranged them again at about eight o'clock and told me to go to sleep. I had not slept at all since I got the influenza and I could not sleep then, but I thought it better to pretend to sleep and I lay as still as I could. After I had been pretending for a long while, at some hour in the very middle of the night, Titherington burst into my room in a noisy way. He was in evening dress and his shirt front had a broad wrinkle across it. I have never seen a more unutterably abhorrent sight than Titherington in evening dress. The nurse rebuked him for having wakened me, which showed me that she was a fool as well as a wantonly cruel woman. I had not been asleep and any nurse who knew her business would have seen that I was only pretending. Titherington took no notice of her. He was bubbling over with something he wanted to say, and twenty nurses would not have stopped him.

"We had a great meeting," he said. "The hall was absolutely packed and the boys at the back nearly killed a man who wanted to ask questions."

"McMeekin, I hope," I said feebly.

"No. McMeekin was on the platform—mind that now—on the platform. I gave him a hint beforehand that we were thinking of calling in another man if you didn't improve. He simply bounded on to the platform after that. It'll be an uncommonly nasty jar for Vittie. The speaking wasn't up to much, most of it; but I wish you'd heard the cheers when I apologized for your absence and told them you were ill in bed. It would have done you good. I wouldn't give tuppence for Vittie's chances of getting a dozen votes in this part of the division. We had two temperance secretaries, damned asses, to propose votes of thanks."

"For my influenza?"

"You're getting better," said Titherington, "not a doubt of it. I'll send you round a dozen of champagne to-morrow, proper stuff, and by the time you've swallowed it you'll be chirrupping like a grasshopper."

"I'm not getting better, and that brute McMeekin wouldn't let me look at champagne. He gives me gruel and a vile slop he calls beef tea."

"If he doesn't give you something to buck you up," said Titherington, "I'll set Miss Beresford on him. She'll make him hop."

The mention of Lalage reminded me that the meeting was the occasion of her first speech.

I found myself beginning to take a slight interest in what Titherington was saying. It did not really matter to me how things had gone, for I knew that I was going to die almost at once. But even with that prospect before me I wanted to hear how Lalage's maiden speech had been received.

"Did Miss Beresford speak at the meeting?" I asked.

The nurse came over to my bed and insisted on slipping her thermometer under my arm. It was a useless and insulting thing to do, but I bore it in silence because I wanted to hear about Lalage's speech. Titherington did not answer at once, and when he did it was in an unsatisfactory way.

"Oh, she spoke all right," he said.

"You may just as well tell me the truth."

"The speech was a good speech, I'll not deny that, a thundering good speech."

The nurse came at me again and retrieved her abominable thermometer. She twisted it about in the light of the lamp and then whispered to Titherington.

"Don't shuffle," I said to him. "I can see perfectly well that you're keeping something back from me. Did McMeekin insult Miss Beresford in any way? For if he did——"

"Not at all," said Titherington. "But I've been talking long enough. I'll tell you all the rest to-morrow."

Without giving me a chance of protesting he left the room. I felt that I was going to break down again; but I restrained myself and told the nurse plainly what I thought of her.

"I don't know," I said, "whether it is in accordance with the etiquette of your profession to thwart the wishes of a dying man, but that's what you've just done. You know perfectly well that I shall not be alive to-morrow morning and you could see that the only thing I really wanted was to hear something about the meeting. Even a murderer is given some indulgence on the morning of his execution. But just because I have, through no fault of my own, contracted a disease which neither you nor McMeekin know how to cure, I am not allowed to ask a simple question. You may think, I have no doubt you do think, that you have acted with firmness and tact. In reality you have been guilty of blood-curdling cruelty of a kind probably unmatched in the annals of the Spanish Inquisition."

I think my words produced a good deal of effect on her. She did not attempt to make any answer; but she covered up my shoulder with the bedclothes. I shook them off again at once and scowled at her with such bitterness that she left my bedside and sat down near the fire. I saw that she was watching me, so again pretended to go to sleep.

McMeekin came to see me next morning, and had the effrontery to repeat the statement that I was better. I was not, and I told him so distinctly. After he was gone Titherington came with a large bag in his hand. He sent the nurse out of the room and unpacked the bag. He took out of it a dozen small bottles of champagne. He locked the door and then we drank one of the bottles between us. Titherington used my medicine glass. I had the tumbler off the wash-hand-stand. The nurse knocked at the door before we had finished. But Titherington, with a rudeness which made me really like him, again told her to go away because we were talking business. After I had drunk the champagne I began to feel that McMeekin might have been right after all. I was slightly better. Titherington put the empty bottle in the pocket of his overcoat and packed up the eleven full bottles in the bag again. He locked the bag and then pushed it as far as he could under my bed with his foot. He knew, just as well as I did, that either the nurse or McMeekin would steal the champagne if they saw it lying about.

"Now," he said, "you're not feeling so chippy."

"No, I'm not. Tell me about Miss Beresford's speech."

"It began well," said Titherington. "It began infernally well. She stood up and, without by your leave or with your leave, said that all politicians were damned liars."

"Damned?"

"Well, bloody," said Titherington, with the air of a man who makes a concession.

"Was Hilda there?"

"She was, cheering like mad, the same as the rest of us."

"I'm sorry for that. Hilda is, or was, a nice, innocent girl. Her mother won't like her hearing that sort of language."

"Bloody wasn't the word she used," said Titherington, "but she gave us all the impression that it was what she meant!"

"Go on."

"Of course I thought, in fact we all thought, that she was referring to Vittie and O'Donoghue, especially Vittie. The boys at the back of the hall, who hate Vittie worse than the devil, nearly raised the roof off with the way they shouted. I could see that McMeekin didn't half like it. He's rather given himself away by supporting Vittie. Well, as long as the cheering went on Miss Beresford stood and smiled at them. She's a remarkably well set up girl so the boys went on cheering just for the pleasure of looking at her. When they couldn't cheer any more she started off to prove what she said. She began with O'Donoghue and she got in on him. She had a list as long as your arm of the whoppers he and the rest of that pack of blackguards are perpetually ramming down people's throats. Home Rule, you know, and all that sort of blasted rot. Then she took the skin off Vittie for about ten minutes. Man, but it would have done you good to hear her. The most innocent sort of remark Vittie ever made in his life she got a twist on it so that it came out a regular howling lie. She finished him off by saying that Ananias and Sapphira were a gentleman and a lady compared to the ordinary Liberal, because they had the decency to drop down dead when they'd finished, whereas Vittie's friends simply went on and told more. By that time there wasn't one in the hall could do more than croak, they'd got so hoarse with all the cheering. I might have been in a bath myself with the way the sweat was running off me, hot sweat."

Titherington paused, for the nurse knocked at the door again. This time he got up and let her in. Then he went on with his story.

"The next minute," he said, "it was frozen on me."

"The sweat?"

Titherington nodded.

"Go on," I said.

"She went on all right. You'll hardly believe it, but when she'd finished with O'Donoghue and Vittie she went on to——"

"Me, I suppose."

"No. Me," said Titherington. "She said she didn't blame you in the least because she didn't think you had sense enough to lie like a real politician, and that those two letters about the Temperance Question——"

"She'd got ahold of those?"

"They were in the papers, of course, and she said I'd written them. Well, for just half a minute I wasn't quite sure whether the boys were going to rush the platform or not. There wouldn't have been much left of Miss Beresford if they had. But she's a damned good-looking girl. That saved her. Instead of mobbing her every man in the place started to laugh. I tell you there were fellows there with stitches in their sides from laughing so that they'd have given a five-pound note to be able to stop. But they couldn't. Every time they looked at me and saw me sitting there with a kind of a cast-iron grin on my face—and every time they looked at the two temperance secretaries who were gaping like stuck pigs, they started off laughing again. Charlie Sanderson, the butcher, who's a stoutish kind of man, tumbled off his chair and might have broken his neck. I never saw such a scene in my life."

I saw the nurse poking about to find her thermometer. Titherington saw her too and knew what was coming.

"It was all well enough for once," he said, "but we can't have it again."

"How do you propose to stop it?" I asked.

"My idea," said Titherington, "is that you should see her and explain to her that we've had enough of that sort of thing and that for the future she'd better stick entirely to Vittie."

I am always glad to see Lalage. Nothing, even in my miserable condition, would have pleased me better than a visit from her, But I am not prepared at any time to explain things to her, especially when the explanation is meant to influence her action. I am particularly unfitted for the task when I am in a state of convalescence. I interrupted Titherington.

"Nurse," I said, "have you got that thermometer? I'm nearly sure my temperature is up again."

Titherington scowled, but he knew he was helpless. As he left the room he stopped for a moment and turned to me. "What beats me about the whole performance," he said, "is that she never said a single word about woman's suffrage from start to finish. I never met one of that lot before who could keep off the subject for as much as ten minutes at a time even in private conversation."



CHAPTER XIII

I entered next day on what proved to be the most disagreeable stage of my illness. McMeekin called on me in the morning. He performed some silly tricks with a stethoscope and felt my pulse with an air of rapt attention which did not in the least deceive me. Then he intimated that I might sit up for an hour or two after luncheon. The way he made this announcement was irritating enough. Instead of saying straightforwardly, "You can get out of bed if you like," or words to that effect, he smirked at the nurse and said to her, "I think we may be allowed to sit up in a nice comfortable armchair for our afternoon tea to-day." But the permission itself was far worse than the manner in which it was given. I did not in the least want to get up. Bed was beginning to feel tolerably comfortable. I hated the thought of an armchair. I hated still more bitterly the idea of having to walk across the floor. I suppose McMeekin saw by my face that I did not want to get up. He tried, after his own foolish fashion, to cheer and encourage me.

"Poor Vittie's got it too," he said. "I was called in to see him last night."

"Influenza?"

"Yes. It's becoming a perfect epidemic in the district. I have forty cases on my list."

"If Vittie's got it," I said, "there's no reason in the world why I should get up."

McMeekin is a singularly stupid man. He did not see what I meant. I had to explain myself.

"The only object I should have in getting up," I said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, "would be to prevent Vittie going round the constituency when I couldn't be after him. Now that he's down himself he can't do anything more than I can; so I may just as well stay where I am."

Even then McMeekin failed to catch my point.

"You'll have to get up some time or other," he said. "You may just as well start to-day."

When he had left the room I appealed to the nurse.

"Did you ever," I said, "hear a more inane remark than that? In the first place I have pretty well made up my mind never to get up again. It isn't worth while for all the good I ever get by being up. In the second place it's ridiculous to say that because one has to do a thing sometime one may as well do it at once. You have to be buried sometime, but you wouldn't like it if McMeekin told you that you might just as well be buried to-day."

I hold that this was a perfectly sound argument which knocked the bottom out of McMeekin's absurd statement, but it did not convince the nurse. As I might have known beforehand she was in league with McMeekin. Instead of agreeing with me that the man was a fool, she smiled at me in that particularly trying way called bright and cheery.

"But wouldn't it be nice to sit up for a little?" she said.

"No, it wouldn't."

"It would be a change for you, and you'd sleep better afterward."

"I've got on capitally without sleep for nearly a week and I don't see any use in reacquiring a habit, a wasteful habit, which I've succeeded in breaking."

She said something about the doctor's orders.

"The doctor," I replied, "did not give any orders. He gave permission, which is a very different thing."

I spent some time in explaining the difference between an order and a permission. I used simple illustrations and made my meaning so plain that no one could possibly have missed it. The nurse, instead of admitting that I had convinced her, went out of the room. She came back again with a cupful of beef tea which she offered me with another bright smile. If I were not a man with a very high sense of the courtesy due to women I should have taken the cup and thrown it at her head. It is, I think, very much to my credit that I drank the beef tea and then did nothing worse than turn my face to the wall.

At two o'clock she got my dressing gown and somewhat ostentatiously spread it out on a chair in front of the fire. I lay still and said nothing, though I saw that she still clung to the idea of getting me out of bed. Then she rang the bell and made the red-haired girl bring a dilapidated armchair into the room. She pummelled its cushions with her fists for some time and then put a pillow on it. This showed me that she fully expected to succeed in making me sit up. I was perfectly determined to stay where I was. I pretended to go to sleep and even went the length of snoring in a long-drawn, satisfied kind of way. She came over and looked at me. I very slightly opened the corner of one eye and saw by the expression of her face that she did not believe I was really asleep. I prepared for the final struggle by gripping the bedclothes tightly with both hands and poking my feet between the bars at the bottom of the bed.

At three o'clock she had me seated in the armchair, clothed in my dressing gown, with a rug wrapped round my legs. I was tingling with suppressed rage and flushed with a feeling of degradation. I intended, as soon as I regained my self control, to say some really nasty things to her. Before I had made up my mind which of several possible remarks she would dislike most, Titherington came into the room. The nurse does not like Titherington. She has never liked him since the day that he kept her outside the door while we drank champagne. She always smoothes her apron with both hands when she sees him, which is a sign that she would like to do him a bodily injury if she could. On this occasion, alter smoothing her apron and shoving a protruding hair pin into the back of her hair, she marched out of the room.

"McMeekin tells me," I said to Titherington, "that Vittie has got the influenza. Is it true?"

"He says he has," said Titherington, with strong emphasis on the word "says."

"Then I wish you'd go round and offer him the use of my nurse. I don't want her."

"He has two aunts, and besides——"

I was not going to allow Vittie's aunts to stand in my way. I interrupted Titherington with an argument which I felt sure he would appreciate.

"He may have twenty aunts," I said; "that's not my point. What I'm thinking of is the excellent effect it will produce in the constituency if I publicly sacrifice myself by handing over my nurse to my political opponent. The amount of electioneering capital which could be made out of an act of heroism of that kind—why, it would catch the popular imagination more than if I jumped into a mill race to save Vittie from a runaway horse, and everybody knows that if you can bring off a spoof of that sort an election is as good as won."

Titherington growled.

"All the papers would have it," I said. "Even the Nationalists would be obliged to admit that I'd done a particularly noble thing." "I don't believe Vittie has the influenza."

"McMeekin said so."

"It would be just like Vittie," said Titherington, "to pretend he had it so as to get an excuse for calling in McMeekin. He knows McMeekin has been wobbling ever since you got ill."

This silenced me. If Vittie is crafty enough to devise such a complicated scheme-for bribing McMeekin without bringing himself within the meshes of the Corrupt Practices Act he is certainly too wise to allow himself to be subjected to my nurse.

"Anyway," said Titherington, "it's not Vittie's influenza I came here to talk about."

"Have you got the key of your bag with you?"

Titherington was in a bad temper, but he allowed himself to grin. He went down on his hands and knees and dragged the bag from its hiding place under the bed.

We opened two half bottles, but although Titherington drank a great deal more than his share he remained morose.

"That girl," he said, "is playing old hookey with the constituency. I won't be answerable for the consequences unless she's stopped at once."

"I suppose you're speaking about Miss Beresford?"

"Instead of talking rot about woman's suffrage," said Titherington savagely, "and ragging Vittie, which is what we brought her here for, she's going round calling everybody a liar. And it won't do. I tell you it won't do at all."

"You said it was a good speech," I reminded him.

"I shouldn't have minded that speech. It's what she's been at since then. She spent all day yesterday and the whole of this morning going round from house to house gassing about the way nobody in political life ever speaks the truth. She has a lot of young fools worked up to such a state that I can scarcely show my face in the streets, and I hear that they mobbed a man up at the railway station who came down to support O'Donoghue. He deserved it, of course, but it's impossible to say who they'll attack next. Half the town is going about with yards of white ribbon pinned on to them."

"What on earth for?"

"Some foolery. It's the badge of some blasted society she's started. There's A.S.P.L. on the ribbons."

"I told you at the start," I said, "that the letters A.S.P.L. couldn't stand for votes for women, but you would have it that they did."

"She has the whole town placarded with notices of a meeting she's going to hold to-morrow night. We can't possibly have that, you know."

"Well, why don't you stop her?"

"Stop her! I've done every damned thing I could to stop her. I went round to her this morning and told her you'd sign any pledge she liked about woman's suffrage if she'd only clear out of this and go to Belfast. She as good as told me to my face that she wouldn't give a tinker's curse for any pledge I had a hand in giving. My own impression is that she doesn't care if she never got a vote, or any other woman either. All she wants is to turn the place into a bear garden and spoil the whole election. I've come here to tell you plain that if you don't interfere I'll wash my hands of the whole affair."

"Don't do that," I said. "Think of the position I'd be in if you deserted me."

"Then stop her."

"I would. I would stop her at once if I hadn't got the influenza. You see yourself the state I'm in. The nurse wouldn't let me do it even if McMeekin agreed."

"Damn the nurse!"

"I quite agree; and if you'd do as I suggest and cart her off to Vittie——"

"Look here," said Titherington. "It's all very well you're talking like that, but this is serious. The whole election's becoming a farce. Miss Beresford——"

"It's a well-known fact that there is nothing so uncontrollable as a tiger once it has got the taste of human blood, and Miss Beresford, having found out how nice it is to call you and Vittie and O'Donoghue liars, isn't likely to be persuaded——"

"What are you going to do?" said Titherington truculently.

"I? I'm going back to bed as soon as I can, and when once back I'm going to stay there."

Titherington looked so angry that I began to feel afraid. I was quite helpless and I did not want him to revenge himself on me by carrying off the champagne or sending for a second nurse.

"There's just one idea which occurs to me," I said. "I doubt whether it will be much use, but you might try it if you're regularly stuck. Write to Hilda's mother."

"Who the devil's Hilda's mother?"

"I don't know, but you might find out. She strongly disapproves of Hilda's making speeches, and if she knew what is going on here I expect she'd stop it. She'd stop Hilda anyhow."

"Is Hilda the other one."

"Yes," I said. "The minor one."

Titherington got out a note book and a pencil.

"What's her address?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Never mind. I'll hunt all the directories till I find her. What's her name?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what's the girl's name? I suppose the mother's is the same unless she's married again."

"Hilda," I said. "I've told you that three or four times."

"Hilda what?"

"I don't know. I never heard her called anything but Hilda."

Titherington shut his note book and swore. Then he dropped his pencil on the floor. I felt quite sorry for him. If I had known Hilda's surname I should have told it to him at once.

"It's just possible," I said, "that Selby-Harrison's father might know. He lives down in these parts somewhere. Perhaps you've met him."

"There's only one Selby-Harrison here. He's on your committee, a warm supporter of yours."

"That's the man. Selby-Harrison, the son I mean, said he'd write to the old gentleman and tell him to vote for me. I expect he went on my committee after that."

"And you think he can get at this young woman's mother?"

"No. I don't think anything of the sort. All I say is that he may possibly know the name of Hilda's mother."

"Can't I get at Miss Beresford's mother?"

"No, you can't. She's been dead for twenty years."

"A good job for her," said Titherington.

"The Archdeacon would agree with you there."

"What Archdeacon?"

I saw that I had made an unfortunate admission. Titherington, in his present mood, would be quite capable of bringing the Archdeacon down on us here. I would almost rather have a second nurse. I hastened to cover my mistake.

"Any Archdeacon," I said. "You know what Archdeacons are. There isn't one of them belonging to any church who wouldn't disapprove strongly of Miss Beresford."

Titherington grunted.

"If I thought an Archdeacon would be any use," he said, "I'd get a dozen if I had to pay them fifty pounds apiece."

"They wouldn't help in the slightest. Miss Beresford and Hilda have libelled twenty-three bishops in their day. They'd simply laugh at your Archdeacons."

"Well," said Titherington, "I suppose that's all I am to get out of you."

"That's all. If there was anything else I could suggest——"

Titherington picked up his pencil again.

"I'll try Selby-Harrison," he said, "and if he knows the name——"

"If he doesn't, get him to wire to his son for it. He certainly knows."

"I will."

"I needn't tell you," I added, "that the telegram must be cautiously worded."

"What do you mean?"

"Merely that if Selby-Harrison, the son, suspects that you and the father want to worry Hilda or Miss Beresford in any way he'll lie low and not answer the telegram. He's on the committee of the A.S.P.L., so of course he won't want the work of the society to be interfered with."

"If he doesn't answer, I'll go up to Dublin to-night and drag it out of the young pup by force. It'll be a comfort anyhow to be dealing with somebody I can kick. These girls are the very devil."

"No. 175 Trinity College is the address," I said. "J is the initial. If he's not in his rooms when you call just ask where the 3rd A. happens to be playing."

"The what?"

"It's a hockey eleven and it's called the 3rd A. Miss Beresford told me so and I think we may rely on it that she, at least, speaks the truth. Selby-Harrison sometimes plays halfback and sometimes inside left, but anybody would point him out to you."

Titherington took several careful notes in his book.

"It's not much of a chance," I said, "but it will keep you busy for a while and anything is better than sitting still and repining."

"In the infernal fix we're in," said Titherington, "anything is worth trying."



CHAPTER XIV

During the time that Titherington and I were thrown together I learned to respect and admire him, but I never cared for him as a companion. Only once, so far as I recollect, did I actually wish to see him. The day after I gave him the hint about Hilda's mother I waited for him anxiously. I was full of curiosity. I wanted to know what Hilda's surname was, a matter long obscure to me, which Titherington, if any man living, would find out. I also wanted to know how Hilda's mother took the news of her daughter's political activity. I waited for him all day but he did not visit me. Toward evening I came to the conclusion that he must have found himself obliged to go up to Dublin in pursuit of Selby-Harrison, junior. I spent a pleasant hour or two in picturing to myself the interview between them. Titherington had spoken of using violent means of persuasion, of dragging the surname of Hilda out of the young man. He might, so I liked to think, chase Selby-Harrison round the College Park with a drawn sword in his hand. Then there would be complications. The Provost and senior fellows, not understanding Titherington's desperate plight, would resent his show of violence, which would strike them as unseemly in their academic groves. Swift, muscular porters would be sent in pursuit of Titherington, who would, himself, still pursue Selby-Harrison. The great bell of the Campanile would ring furious alarm peals. The Dublin metropolitan police would at last be called in, for Titherington, when in a determined mood, would be very difficult to overpower.

All this was pleasant to think about at first; but there came a time when my mind was chiefly occupied in resenting Titherington's thoughtlessness. He had no right to go off on a long expedition without leaving me the key of the bag in which we kept the champagne. I felt the need of a stimulant so badly that I ventured to ask McMeekin, who called just before I went to bed, to allow me half a glass of Burgundy. Burgundy would not have been nearly as good for me as champagne, but it would have been better than nothing. McMeekin sternly forbade anything of the sort, and I heard him tell the nurse to give me barley water when I asked for a drink. This is another proof that McMeekin ought to be in an asylum for idiots. Barley water would depress me and make me miserable even if I were in perfect health.

As a set-off against Titherington's thoughtlessness and McMeekin's imbecility, I noticed that during the day the nurse became gradually less obnoxious. I began to see that she had some good points and that she meant well by me, though she still did things of which I could not possibly approve. She insisted, for instance, that I should wash my face, a wholly unnecessary exertion which exhausted me greatly and might easily have given me cold. Still I disliked her less than I did before, and felt, toward evening that she was becoming quite tolerable. I always like to give praise to any one who deserves it, especially if I have been obliged previously to speak in a different way. After I got into bed I congratulated her on the improvement I had noticed in her character and disposition. She replied that she was delighted to see that I was beginning to pick up a little. The idea in her mind evidently was that no change had taken place in her but that I was shaking off a mood of irritable pessimism, one of the symptoms of my disease. I did not argue with her though I knew that she was quite wrong. There really was a change in her and I had all along kept a careful watch over my temper.

The day after that, being, I believe, the eighth of my illness, I got up at eleven o'clock and put on a pair of trousers under my dressing-gown. McMeekin, backed by the nurse, insisted on my sending for a barber to shave me. I did not like the barber, for, like all his tribe, he was garrulous and I had to appeal to the nurse to stop him talking. Afterward I was very glad I had endured him. Lalage and Hilda called on me at two o'clock, and I should not have liked them to see me in the state I was in before the barber came. They both looked fresh and vigorous. Electioneering evidently agreed with them.

"We looked in," said Lalage, "because we thought you might want to be cheered up a bit. You can't have many visitors now that poor Tithers is gone."

"Dead?"

"Oh, no, not yet at least, and we hope he won't. Tithers means well and I daresay it's not his fault if he don't speak the truth."

"They've put him in prison, I suppose. I hardly thought they'd allow him to chop up Selby-Harrison in the College Park."

Hilda gaped at me. Lalage went over to the nurse and whispered something in her ear. The nurse shook her head and said that my temperature was normal.

"If you're not raving," said Lalage, "you're deliberately talking nonsense. I don't know what you mean, nor does Hilda."

"It ought to be fairly obvious," I said, "that I'm alluding to Mr. Titherington's attempt to find out Hilda's surname from young Selby-Harrison."

Hilda giggled convulsively. Then she got out her pocket handkerchief and choked.

"Tithers," said Lalage, "is past caring about anybody's name. He's got influenza. It came on him the night before last at twelve o'clock. He's pretty bad."

"I'm glad to hear that. I was afraid he might have been arrested in Dublin. If it's only influenza there's no reason why he shouldn't send me the key of the bag. I suppose you'll be going round to see him in the course of the afternoon, Lalage."

"We hadn't thought of doing that," said Lalage, "but of course we can if you particularly want us to."

"I wish you would, and tell him to send me the key of the bag at once. You could bring it back with you."

"Certainly," said Lalage. "Is that all?"

"That's all I want; but it would be civil to ask how he is."

"There's no use making a special, formal visit for a trifle like that. Hilda will run round at once. It won't take her ten minutes."

Hilda hesitated.

"Run along, Hilda," said Lalage.

Hilda still hesitated. It occurred to me that she might not know where Titherington's house was.

"Turn to the right," I said, "as soon as you get out of the hotel. Then go on to the end of the street. Mr. Titherington's house is at the corner and stands a little way back. It has 'Sandringham' in gilt letters on the gate. You can't miss it. In fact, you can see it from the door of the hotel. Nurse will show it to you."

Even then Hilda did not start.

"The key of what bag?" she asked.

"Is it any particular bag?" said Lalage.

"Of course it is," I said. "What on earth would be the use——?"

"Will Tithers knows what bag you mean?" said Lalage.

"He will. Now that he has influenza himself he can't help knowing."

"Off with you, Hilda."

This time Hilda started, slowly. The nurse, who evidently thought that Hilda was being badly treated, went with her. She certainly took her as far as the hotel door. She may have gone all the way to Titherington's house. Lalage sat down opposite me and lit a cigarette.

"We are having a high old time," she said. "Now that Tithers is gone and O'Donoghue, who appears to be rather an ass, professes to have a sore throat——"

She winked at me.

"Do you suspect him of having influenza?" I asked.

"Of course, but he won't own up if he can help it."

"Vittie is only shamming," I said. "Titherington told me so, he may emerge at any moment."

"It's just like Tithers to say that. The one thing he cannot do is speak the truth. As a matter of fact Vittie is in a dangerous condition. His aunt told me so."

"Have you been to see him."

"No. The aunt came round to us this morning with tears in her eyes, and begged us to spare Vittie."

"I suppose the things you have been saying about him have made him worse."

"According to his aunt they keep him in such an excitable state that he can't sleep. I told her I was jolly glad to hear it. That just shows the amount of good the A.S.P.L. is doing in the district. It's making its power felt in every direction."

"If Vittie dies———"

"He won't. That sort of man never does. I'm sorry for the aunt of course. She seemed a quiet, respectable sort of woman and, curiously enough, very fond of Vittie. I told her that I'd do anything I conscientiously could to lull off Vittie, but that I had my duty to perform. And I have, you know. I'm clearing the air."

"It wants it badly. McMeekin told me two days ago he had forty cases and there are evidently a lot more now."

"I'm not talking about microbes," said Lalage. "What I'm talking about is the moral 'at'."

I thought for a moment.

—"titude?" I ventured to suggest.

"No," said Lalage, "—mosphere. It wants it far worse than the other air. I had no idea till I took on this job that politics are such utter sinks as they are. What you tell me now about Vittie is just another example of what I mean. I dare say now it will turn out that he went to bed in the hope of escaping my exposure of the way he's been telling lies."

"Titherington hinted," I said, "that he did it in the hope of influencing McMeekin's vote. Fees, you know."

"That's worse."

"A great deal worse."

"Funk," said Lalage, "which is what I did suspect him of, is comparatively honest, but a stratagem of the kind you suggest, is as bad as felony. I shall certainly have at him for that."

"Titherington will be tremendously pleased if you do."

"I'm not trying to please Tithers. I'm acting in the interests of public morality."

"Still," I said, "there's no harm in pleasing Tithers incidentally."

"I have a big meeting on to-night. Hilda takes the chair, and I'll rub it in about Vittie shamming sick. I never heard anything more disgraceful. Can Tithers be playing the same game, do you think?"

"I don't know," I said. "Hilda will be able to tell us that when she comes back."

Hilda came back so soon that I think she must have run part of the way at least. Probably she ran back, when the nurse was not with her.

"He won't send you the key," she said, "but he wants you to send him the bag."

"Is he shamming?" said Lalage, "or has he really got it?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him."

"If you didn't see him," I said hopefully, "you may be wrong after all about his wanting the bag. He can't be so selfish."

"Who did you see?" said Lalage.

"Mrs. Titherington," said Hilda. "She——"

"Fancy there being a Mrs. Tithers," said Lalage. "How frightfully funny! What was she like to look at?"

"Never mind that for the present, Hilda," I said. "Just tell me about the key."

"She took your message up to him," said Hilda, "and came down again in a minute looking very red in the face."

"Titherington must have sworn at her," I said. "What a brute that man is!"

"You'd better take him round the bag at once," said Lalage. "Where is it?"

"He shan't have the bag," I said. "There are only eight bottles left and I want them myself."

"Bottles of what?"

"Champagne, of course."

"His or yours?" asked Lalage.

"They were his at first. They're mine now, for he gave them to me, and I'm going to keep them."

"I don't see what all the fuss is about," said Lalage. "Do you, Hilda? I suppose you and Tithers can both afford to buy a few more bottles if you want them."

"You don't understand," I said. "I'm quite ready to give a sovereign a bottle if necessary, and I'm sure that Titherington would, too. The point is that my nurse won't let me have any, and I don't suppose Titherington's wife will let him. That ass McMeekin insists on poisoning me with barley water, and Titherington's doctor, whoever he is, is most likely doing the same."

"I see," said Lalage. "This just bears out what I've been saying all along about the utter want of common honesty in political life. Here are you and Tithers actually quarrelling about which of you is to be allowed to lie continuously. You are deliberately deceiving your doctor and nurse. Tithers wants to deceive his wife, which is, if anything, a shade worse. Hilda, find that bag."

"Lalage," I said, "you're not going to give it to Titherington, are you? It wouldn't be good for him, it wouldn't really."

"Make your mind quite easy about that," said Lalage. "I'm not going to give it to either of you. Hilda, look under the bed. That's just the idiotic sort of place Tithers would hide a thing."

I heard Hilda grovelling about on the floor. A minute later she was dragging the bag out.

"What are you going to do with it, Lalage?"

"Take it away and keep it myself till you're both well."

"We never shall be," I said. "We shall die. Please, Lalage, please don't."

"It's the only honest course," said Lalage.

I made an effort to assert myself, though I knew it was useless.

"There is such a thing," I said, "as carrying honesty too far. All extremes are wrong. There are lots of occasions on which it isn't at all right to tell the literal truth."

"None," said Lalage.

"Suppose a robber was robbing you, and you had a five-pound note inside your sock and suppose he said to you, 'Have you any more money?'"

"That has nothing to do with the way you and Tithers have conspired together to deceive the very people who are trying to do you good."

"Lalage," I said, "I've subscribed liberally to the funds of the society. I'll subscribe again. I did my best for you at the time of the bishop row. I don't think you ought to turn on me now because I'm adopting the only means in my power of resisting a frightful tyranny. You might just as well call it dishonest of a prisoner to try to escape because he doesn't tell the gaoler beforehand how he's going to do it."

"Hilda," said Lalage, "collar that bag and come on."

"Lalage," I said sternly, "if you take that bag I'll write straight to the Archdeacon."

Hilda was already outside the door. Lalage turned.

"It will be much more unpleasant for you than for me," she said, "if you bring the Archdeacon down here. I'm not afraid of him. You are."

"I'll write to Miss Battersby. I'll write to the Provost, and to Miss Pettigrew. I'll write to Hilda's mother. I'll get Selby-Harrison to write, too. I'll——"

Lalage was gone. I rang the bell savagely and told the nurse to get my pens, ink, and paper. I thoroughly agreed with Titherington. Lalage's proceedings must be stopped at once.



CHAPTER XV

I wrote the first page of a letter to the Archdeacon and expressed myself, so far as I could in that limited space, strongly. I gave him to understand that Lalage must be either enticed or forced to leave Bally-gore. I intended to go onto a description of the sort of things Lalage had been doing, of Titherington's helplessness and Vittie's peril. But I was brought up short at the end of the first page by the want of blotting paper. The nurse brought me two pens, a good sized bottle of ink, several quires of paper and about fifty envelopes. Then she went out for her afternoon walk, and I did not discover until after she had gone that I had no blotting paper. The only course open to me was to wait, as patiently as I could, until the first page of the letter dried. It took a long time to dry, because I was very angry when I began to write and had pressed heavily on the pen. The crosses of my t's were like short broad canals. The loops of the e's, Fs and such letters were deep pools, and I had underlined one word with some vigour. I waved the sheet to and fro in the air. When I got tired of waving it I propped it up against the fender and let the heat of the fire play on it.

While I was waiting my anger gradually cooled and I began to see that Lalage was perfectly right in saying that I should suffer most if the Archdeacon came to our rescue. The story of the champagne in the bag would leak out at once. The Archdeacon, as I recollected, already suspected me of intemperance. When he heard that I was drinking secretly and keeping a private supply of wine he would be greatly shocked and would probably feel that it was his duty to act firmly. He would, almost certainly, hold a consultation with McMeekin. McMeekin is just the sort of man to resent anything in the way of a professional slight from one of his patients. Goaded on by the Archdeacon he would invent some horrible punishment for me. In mediaeval times, so I am given to understand, the clergy tortured people, in cells, for the good of their souls, and any one who had a private enemy denounced him to the Grand Inquisitor. Faith has nowadays given way before the assaults of science and it is the doctors who possess the powers of the rack. Instead of being suspected of heresy a man is now accused of having an abscess on his appendix. His doom is much the same, to have his stomach cut open with knives, though the name given to it is different. It is now called an operation. The older term, rather more expressive, was disembowelling. Four hundred years ago McMeekin, if he had a grievance against me, would have denounced me to the Archdeacon. Now, things have changed so far that it is the Archdeacon who denounces me to McMeekin. The result for me is much the same. I do not suppose that my case would either then or now be one for extreme penalties. I am not the stuff of which obstinate heretics are made, nor have I any heroic tumour which would render me liable to the knife. Slow starvation, a diet of barley water, beef tea, and milk puddings, would meet the requirements of my case. But I did not want any more barley water and beef tea. I have always, from my childhood up, hated milk puddings. I thought over my position carefully and by the time the first sheet of my letter to the Archdeacon was dry, I had arrived at the conclusion that I had better not go on with it. I burned it.

Lalage's meeting, held that night, was an immense success. The town hall was packed to its utmost capacity and I am told that Lalage spoke very well indeed. She certainly had a good subject and a fine opportunity. Vittie, O'Donoghue, and I were all in bed. Our chief supporters, Titherington and the others, were helpless, with temperatures ranging from 102 to 105 degrees. But even if we had all been quite well and in full possession of our fighting powers we could not have made any effective defence against Lalage. She had an astonishingly good case. Titherington, for instance, might have talked his best, but he could not have produced even a plausible explanation of those two letters of ours on the temperance question. O'Donoghue was in a worse case. He had made statements about budgets and things of that kind which Lalage's favourite word only feebly describes. Vittie, apart altogether from any question of the genuineness of his influenza, was in the narrowest straits of us all. He appears to have lied with an abandon and a recklessness far superior to O'Donoghue's or mine. Lalage, so I heard afterward, spent an hour and a half denouncing us and devoted about two-thirds of the time to Vittie. His aunts must have had a trying time with him that night unless McMeekin came to their rescue with an unusually powerful sleeping draught.

What Lalage said did not keep me awake; but the immediate results of her meeting broke in upon a sleep which I needed very badly. My nurse left me for the night and I dropped off into a pleasant doze. I dreamed, I recollect, that the Archdeacon was bringing me bottles of whiskey in Titherington's bag and that Hilda was standing beside me with the key. I was roused, just as I was about to open the bag, by a terrific noise of bands in the streets. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and even during elections, bands at that hour are unusual. Besides, the bands which I heard were playing more confusedly than even the most excited bands do. It occurred to me that there might possibly be a riot going on and that the musicians were urging forward the combatants. I crawled out of bed and stumbled across the room. I was just in time to see a torchlight procession passing my hotel. The night was windy and the torches flared most successfully, giving quite enough light to make everything plainly visible.

At the head of the procession were two bands a good deal mixed up together. I at once recognized the uniform of the Loyal True Blue Fife and Drums, whose members were my supporters to a man, and who possess many more drums than fifes. The bright-green peaked caps of the other players told me that they were the Wolfe Tone Invincible Brass Band. It usually played tunes favourable to O'Donoghue. Vittie did not own a band. If his supporters had been musical, and if there had been any tunes in the world which expressed their political convictions, there would, no doubt, have been three bands in the procession. The True Blues and the Wolfe Tones were, when they passed me, playing different tunes. In every other respect the utmost harmony prevailed between them. The chief drummer of the True Blues and the cornet player of the Wolfe Tones stopped just under my windows to exchange instruments, an act of courtesy which must be unparalleled in Irish history. I was not able to hear distinctly what sort of attempt my supporter made at the cornet part of "God Save Ireland." But O'Donoghue's friend beat time to "The Protestant Boys" on the drum with an accuracy quite surprising considering that he cannot often have practised the tune. Behind the bands closely surrounded by torch bearers came a confused crowd of men dragging and pushing a wagonette, from which the horses had been taken. In the wagonette were Lalage and Hilda. Lalage was standing up in the driver's seat, a most perilous position. She had in one hand a large roll of white ribbon, the now well-known symbol of the Association for the Suppression of Public Lying, and in her other hand a pair of scissors. She snipped off bits of the ribbon and allowed them to go fluttering away from her in the wind. The crowd scrambled eagerly for them, and it was plain that the association was enrolling members in hundreds. Hilda seemed less happy. She was crouching in the body of the wagonette and looked frightened. Perhaps she was thinking of her mother. I crept back to bed when the procession had passed and felt deeply thankful that I was laid up with influenza. Lalage's meeting was, without doubt, an unqualified success.

Newspapers are, as a rule, busy enough about what happens even in quite obscure constituencies during by-elections. If ours had been one of those occasional contests the subject of public lying, Lalage's portrait and the story of the two bands men would have been quite familiar to all readers. During a general election very few details of particular campaigns can be printed. Editors are kept busy enough chronicling the results and keeping up to date the various clocks, ladders, kites and other devices with which they inform their readers of the state of parties. I was therefore quite hopeful that our performances in Ballygore would escape notice. They did not. Some miserably efficient and enterprising reporter strayed into the town on the very evening of Lalage's meeting and wrote an account of her torchlight procession. The whole thing appeared next morning in the paper which he represented. Other papers copied his paragraphs, and very soon hundreds of them in all parts of the three kingdoms were making merry over the plight of the candidates who lay in bed groaning while a piratical young woman took away their characters. I did not in the least mind being laughed at. I have always laughed at myself and am quite pleased that other people should share my amusement. But I greatly feared that complications of various kinds would follow the publicity which was given to our affairs. Vittie almost certainly, O'Donoghue probably, would resent being made to look ridiculous. Hilda's mother and the Archdeacon might not care for the way in which Lalage emphasized the joke.

My fellow candidates were the first to object. I received letters from them both, written by secretaries and signed very shakily, asking me to cooperate with them in suppressing Lalage. O'Donoghue, who was apparently not quite so ill as Vittie was, also suggested that we should publish, over our three names, a dignified rejoinder to the mirth of the press. He enclosed a rough draft of the dignified rejoinder and invited criticism and amendment from me. My proper course of action was obvious enough. I made my nurse reply with a bulletin, dictated by me, signed by her and McMeekin, to the effect that I was too ill to read letters and totally incapable of answering them. I gave McMeekin twenty-five pounds for medical attendance up to date, just before I asked him to sign the bulletin. I also presented the nurse with a brooch of gold filagree work, which I had brought home with me from Portugal, intending to give it to my mother. It would have been churlish of them, afterward, to refuse to sign my bulletin.

This disposed of Vittie and O'Donoghue for the time. But I knew that there was more trouble before me. I was scarcely surprised when Canon Beresford walked into my room one evening at about nine o'clock. He looked harassed, shaken, and nervous. I asked him at once if he were an influenza convalescent.

"No," he said, "I'm not. I wish I were."

"There are worse things than influenza. I used not to think so at first, but now I know there are. Why don't you get it? I suppose you've come to see me in hope of infection."

"No. I came to warn you. We've just this moment arrived and you may expect us on you to-morrow morning."

"You and the Archdeacon?"

"No. Thank goodness, nothing so bad as that. The Archdeacon is at home."

"I wonder at that. I fully expected he'd have been here."

"He would have been if he could. He wanted to come, but of course it was impossible. You heard I suppose, that the bishop is dead."

"No, I didn't hear. Influenza?"

"Pneumonia, and that ties the Archdeacon."

"What a providential thing! But you said 'we.' Is Thormanby here?"

"No, Thormanby told me yesterday that he'd washed his hands of the whole affair."

"That's exactly what I've done," I said. "It's by far the most sensible thing to do. I wonder you didn't."

"I tried to," said the Canon piteously. "I did my best. I have engaged a berth on a steamer going to Brazil, one that hasn't got a wireless telegraphic installation, and I've secured a locum tenens for the parish. But I shan't be able to go. You can guess why."

"The Archdeacon?"

The Canon nodded sadly. I did not care to make more inquiries about the Archdeacon.

"Well," I said, "if neither he nor Thormanby is with you, who is?"

"Miss Battersby for one. She volunteered."

I felt relieved. Miss Battersby is never formidable.

"She won't matter," I said. "Lalage and Hilda will put her to bed and keep her there. That's what they did with her on the way to Lisbon."

"And Miss Pettigrew," said the Canon.

"How on earth does she come to be mixed up in it?"

"Your mother telegraphed to her and begged her to come down with us to see what she could do. She's supposed to have some influence with Lalage."

"What sort of woman is she? I don't know her personally. Lalage says she's the kind of person that you hate and yet can't help rather loving, although you're afraid of her. Is that your impression of her?"

"She has a strongly developed sense of humour," said the Canon, "and I'm afraid she's rather determined."

"What do you expect to do?"

"I don't myself expect to do anything," said the Canon.

"I meant to say what is the ostensible object of the expedition?"

"The Archdeacon spoke of our rescuing Lalage from an equivocal position."

"You ought to make that man bishop," I said.

"Miss Battersby kept on assuring us all the way down in the train that Lalage is a most lovable child, very gentle and tractable if taken the right way, but high spirited."

"That won't help her much, because she's no nearer now than she was ten years ago to finding out what is the right way to take Lalage. What are Miss Petti-grew's views?"

"She varies," said the Canon, "between chuckling over your position and wishing that Lalage was safely married with some babies to look after. She says there'll be no peace in Ireland until that happens."

"That's an utterly silly scheme. There's nobody here to marry her except Vittie, and I'm perfectly certain his aunts wouldn't let him. He has two aunts. If that is all Miss Pettigrew has to suggest she might as well have stopped at home."

The Canon sighed.

"I'm afraid I must be going," he said, "I promised Miss Pettigrew that I'd be back in half an hour. We're going to see Lalage at once."

"Lalage will be in bed by the time you get there; if she's not organizing another torchlight procession. You'd far better stop where you are."

"I'd like to, but——"

"You can get a bed here and send over for your things. Your two ladies are in the other hotel, I suppose."

"Yes. We knew you were here and Miss Battersby seemed a little afraid of catching influenza, so we went to the other."

"That's all right. You'll be quite safe for the night if you stop here."

"I wish I could, but——"

"You'll not do any good by talking to Lalage. You know that."

"I know that of course; but——"

"It won't be at all pleasant for you when Miss Pettigrew comes out with that plan of hers for marrying Lalage to Vittie. There'll be a horrid row. From what I know of Lalage I feel sure that she'll resent the suggestion. There'll be immense scope for language in the argument which follows and they'll all feel freer to speak out if there isn't a church dignitary standing there listening."

"I know all that, but still——"

"You don't surely mean to say that you want to go and wrangle with Lalage?"

"Of course not. I hate that kind of thing and always did; but——"

"Out with it, Canon. You stick at that 'but' every time."

"I promised Miss Pettigrew I'd go back."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite. The fact is—you don't know Miss Pettigrew, so you won't understand."

"You're afraid of her?" I said.

"Well, yes, I am. Besides, the Archdeacon said some stiff things to me before we started, uncommonly stiff things. Stiff isn't the word I want, but you'll probably know what I mean."

"Prickly," I suggested.

"Yes, prickly. Prickly things about the responsibility of fatherhood and the authority of parents. I really must go."

"Very well. If you must, you must, of course. But don't drag me into it. Remember that I've got influenza and if Miss Pettigrew and Miss Battersby come here I'll infect them. I rely on you to nip in the bud any suggestion that I've anything to do with the affair one way or the other. I tell you plainly that I'd rather see Lalage heading a torchlight procession every day in the week than married to Vittie."

"The Archdeacon says that you are the person chiefly responsible for what he calls Lalage's compromising position."

"The Archdeacon may say what he likes. I'm not responsible. Good heavens, Canon, how can you suppose for an instant that anybody could, be responsible for Lalage?"

"I didn't suppose it. I was only quoting the Archdeacon."

"I wish to goodness the Archdeacon would mind his own business!"

"That's what he's doing," said the Canon. "If he wasn't he'd be here now. He wanted to come. If the poor old bishop had held out another week he would have come."

The Canon left me after that.



CHAPTER XVI

I fully expected a visit from Miss Pettigrew in the course of the next day. I was not disappointed. She arrived at three o'clock, bringing the Canon with her. I was greatly impressed by her appearance. She has bright eyes which twinkled, and she holds her head very straight, pushed well back on her shoulders so that a good deal of her neck is visible below her chin. I felt at once that she was the sort of woman who could do what she liked at me. I attempted my only possible line of defence.

"Aren't you afraid of influenza?" I said. "Is it wise——?

"I'm not in the least afraid," said Miss Pettigrew.

"Not for yourself, of course," I said. "But you might carry it back to Miss Battersby. I'm horribly infectious just now. Even the nurse washes herself in Condy's Fluid after being near me."

"Miss Battersby must take her chance like the rest of us. I've come to talk about Lalage."

"I told the Canon last night," I said, "that I'm not capable of dealing with Lalage. I really am not. I know because I've often tried."

"Listen to me for a minute," said Miss Pettigrew. "We've got to get Lalage out of this. I'm not given to taking conventional views of things and I'm the last woman in Ireland to want to make girls conform to the standard of what's called ladylikeness. But Lalage has gone too far. The newspapers are full of her and that's not good for any girl."

"I'm sure," I said, "that if you represent that view of the case to Lalage——"

"We have. We spent two hours with her last night and three hours this morning. We didn't produce the slightest effect."

"Hilda cried," said the Canon.

"After all," I said, "that's something. I couldn't have made Hilda cry."

"Hilda doesn't count," said Miss Pettigrew. "She's a dear girl but anybody could manage her. We didn't make Lalage cry."

"No," I said, "you couldn't, of course. In fact, I expect, Lalage made you laugh."

Miss Pettigrew smiled and then checked herself. Amusement struggled with a certain grimness for expression on her face. In the end she smiled again.

"Lalage has always made me laugh," she said, "ever since she was quite a little girl. That's what makes it so difficult to manage her."

"Why try?" I said. "Lord Thormanby has washed his hands of her. So have I. The Canon wants to. Wouldn't it be simpler if you did too?"

"It would be much simpler," said Miss Pettigrew. "But I'm not going to do it. I have a very strong affection for Lalage."

"We all have," I said. "No one, not even the Canon has a stronger affection than I have; but I don't see how that helps us much. Something more is required. If sincere affection would have saved Lalage from the equivocal position in which she now is——"

Miss Pettigrew looked at me in a curious way which made me feel hot and very uncomfortable even before I imderstood what she was thinking about. Her eyes twinkled most brilliantly. The smile which had hovered about her lips before broadened. I recollected what the Canon told me the night before. Miss Pettigrew had suggested marriage for Lalage. I had at once thought of Vittie. Miss Pettigrew was not thinking of Vittie. I felt myself getting red in the face as she looked at me.

"I couldn't," I said at last. "This influenza has completely unstrung me. I shouldn't have the nerve. You must admit, Miss Pettigrew, that it would require nerve."

"I'm not suggesting your doing it to-day," said Miss Pettigrew.

"Nor any other day," I said. "I shouldn't be able to screw myself up to the pitch. I'm not that kind of man at all. What you want is some one more of the Young Lochinvar type, or a buccaneer. They're all dashing men who shrink from nothing. Why not advertise for a buccaneer?"

"I don't suppose she'd marry you if you did ask her," said Miss Pettigrew.

"I am sure she wouldn't, so we needn't go on talking about that. Won't you let me ring and get you a cup of tea? They make quite good tea in this hotel!"

"It's too early for tea, and I want to discuss this business of Lalage's seriously. The position has become quite impossible."

"It's been that for more than a week—but it still goes on. That's the worst of impossible positions. Nobody can ever stop them. Titherington said it was impossible the day before he got influenza. You don't know Titherington, nor does the Canon. But if you did you'd realize that he's not the kind of man to let an impossible position alone and yet he was baffled. I had letters yesterday morning from Vittie and O'Don-oghue asking me to cooperate with them in suppressing Lalage They see that the position is impossible just as plainly as you do. But they can't do anything. In fact they've gone to bed."

"I'm not going to bed," said Miss Pettigrew. "I'm going to bring Lalage home with me."

"How?"

"I rather hoped," said Miss Pettigrew, "that you might have some suggestion that would help us."

"I made my only suggestion to Titherington a week ago and it didn't come off. There's no use my making it again!"

"What was it? Perhaps I could work it out."

"It wasn't much of a suggestion really. It was only Hilda's mother."

"I've wired to her and she'll be here to-morrow. I've no doubt that she'll carry off Hilda, but she has no authority over Lalage."

"Nobody has," said the Canon despondingly. "I've said that all along."

"What about the Provost of Trinity College?" I said. "He tackled her over the bishops. You might try him."

"He won't interfere," said the Canon. "I asked him."

"Well," I said, "I can do no more. You can see for yourself, Miss Pettigrew, that I'm not in a state to make suggestions. I'm completely exhausted already and any further mental exertion will bring on a relapse. Do let me ring for tea. I want it myself."

The door opened as I spoke. I hoped that my nurse or McMeekin had arrived and would insist on my being left in peace. I was surprised and, in spite of my exhaustion, pleased to see Lalage and Hilda walk in.

"Father," said Lalage, "why didn't you tell me last night that the bishop is dead?"

"I didn't think it would interest you," said the Canon.

"Of course it interests me. When poor old Pussy mentioned it to me just now I simply hopped out of my shoes with excitement and delight. So did Hilda."

"Did you hate the bishop that much?" I asked. "Worse than other bishops?"

"Not at all," said Lalage. "I never saw him except once and then I thought he was quite a lamb."

"Hilda," I said, "why did you hop out of your shoes with excitement and delight when you heard of the death of an old gentleman who never did you any harm?"

"We'll have to elect another, won't we?" said Lalage.

A horrible dread turned me quite cold. I glanced at Miss Pettigrew. Her eyes had stopped twinkling. I read fear, actual fear, in the expression of her face. We both shrank from saying anything which might lead to the confirming of our worst anticipations. It was the Canon who spoke next. What he said showed that he was nearly desperate.

"Lalage," he said, "will you come with me for a tour to Brazil? I've booked one berth and I can easily get another!"

"I can't possibly go to Brazil," said Lalage, "and you certainly ought not to think of it till the bishopric election is over."

"I'll take Hilda, too," said the Canon. "I should like to have Hilda. You and she would have great fun together.

"I'll give Selby-Harrison a present of his ticket," I added, "and pay his hotel expenses. It would be a delightful trip."

"Brazil," said Miss Pettigrew, "is one of the most interesting countries in the world. I can lend you a book on the natural history."

"Hilda's mother wouldn't let her go," said Lalage. "Would she, Hilda?"

"I'm afraid not," said Hilda. "She thinks I ought to be more at home."

"Miss Pettigrew will talk her over," I said. "It's a great chance for Hilda. She oughtn't to miss it."

"And Selby-Harrison has just entered the Divinity School," said Lalage. "He couldn't possibly afford the time."

"The long days on the steamer," I said, "would be perfectly invaluable to him. He could read theology from morning to night. There'd be nothing, except an occasional albatross, to distract his attention."

"Those South American republics," said Miss Pettigrew, "are continually having revolutions."

Miss Pettigrew is certainly a very clever woman. Her suggestion was the first thing which caused Lalage to waver. A revolution must be very attractive to a girl of her temperament; and revolutions are comparatively rare on this side of the Atlantic. Lalage certainly hesitated.

"What do you think, Hilda?" she asked.

For one moment I dared to hope.

"There's been a lot of gun-running done out there lately," I said, "and I heard of a new submarine on the Amazon."

I am afraid I overdid it. Miss Pettigrew certainly frowned at me.

"Mother would never let me," said Hilda.

I had forgotten Hilda's mother for the moment. I saw at once that the idea of gun-running would frighten her and she would not like to think of her daughter ploughing the bottom of the Amazon in a submarine.

"Besides," said Lalage, "it wouldn't be right. It's our duty, our plain duty, to see this bishopric election through. I'm inclined to think that the Archdeacon is the proper man."

"When do you start for the scene of action?" I asked.

"At once," said Lalage. "There's a train at six o'clock this evening. We left poor Pussy packing her bag and ran round to tell Miss Pettigrew about the change in our plans. I'm dead sick of this old election of yours, anyhow. Aren't you?"

"I am," I said fervently. "I'm so sick of it that I don't care if I never stand for Parliament again. By the way, Lalage, now that you're turning your attention to church affairs wouldn't it be as well to change the name of the society again. You might call it the Episcopal Election Association. E. E. A. would look well at the head of your notepaper and might be worked up into a monogram."

"I daresay we shall make a change," said Lalage, "but if we do we'll be a guild, not a society or an association. Guild is the proper word for anything connected with the church, or high-class furniture, or art needlework. Selby-Harrison will look into the matter for us. But in any case it will be all right about you. You'll still be a life member. Come along, Hilda. We have a lot of people to see before we start. I have to give out badges to about fifty new members."

"Will that be necessary now?" I asked.

"Of course. If anything, more."

"But if you're changing the name of the society?"

"That won't matter in the least. Do come on, Hilda. We shan't have time if you dawdle on here. In any case Pussy will have to pack our clothes for us."

They swept out of the room. Miss Pettigrew got up and shut the door after them. The Canon was too much upset to move.

"I congratulate you, Miss Pettigrew," I said. "You've succeeded after all in getting Lalage out of this. I hardly thought you would."

"This," said the Canon, "is worse, infinitely worse."

"I'm not quite sure," said Miss Pettigrew, "about the procedure in these cases. Who elects bishops?"

"The Diocesan Synod," I said. "Isn't that right, Canon?"

"Yes," he said, gloomily.

"And who constitutes the Diocesan Synod?" said Miss Pettigrew.

"A lot of parsons," I said. "All the parsons there are, and some dear old country gentlemen of blameless lives. Just the people really to appreciate Lalage."

"We shall have more trouble," said Miss Pettigrew.

"Plenty," I said. "And Thormanby will be in the thick of it. He won't find it so easy to wash his hands this time."

"Nor will you," said Miss Pettigrew smiling, but I think maliciously.

"I shall simply stay here," I said, "and go on having influenza."

I have so much respect for Miss Pettigrew that I do not like to say she grinned at me but she certainly employed a smile which an enemy might have described as a grin.

"The election here," she said, "your election takes place, as I understand, early next week. Your mother will expect you home after that."

"Mothers are often disappointed," I said. "Look at Hilda's, for instance. And in any case my mother is a reasonable woman. She'll respect a doctor's certificate, and McMeekin will give me that if I ask him."

The Canon had evidently not been attending to what Miss Pettigrew and I were saying to one another. He broke in rather abruptly:

"Is there any other place more attractive than Brazil?"

He was thinking of Lalage, not of himself. I do not think he cared much where he went so long as he got far from Ireland.

"There are, I believe," I said, "still a few cannibal tribes left in the interior of Borneo. There are certainly head hunters there."

"Dyaks," said Miss Pettigrew.

"I might try her with them," said the Canon.

"If Miss Pettigrew," I suggested, "will manage Hilda's mother, the thing might possibly be arranged. Selby-Harrison could practise being a missionary."

"I shouldn't like Hilda to be eaten," said Miss Pettigrew.

"There's no fear of that," I said. "Lalage is well able to protect her from any cannibal."

"I'll make the offer," said the Canon. "Anything would be better than having Lalage attempting to make speeches at the Diocesan Synod."

Miss Pettigrew had her packing to do and left shortly afterward. The Canon, who seemed to be really depressed, sat on with me and made plans for Lalage's immediate future. From time to time, after I exposed the hollow mockery of each plan, he complained of the tyranny of circumstance.

"If only the bishop hadn't died," he said.

The dregs of the influenza were still hanging about me. I lost my temper with the Canon in the end.

"If only," I said, "you'd brought up Lalage properly."

"I tried governesses," he said, "and I tried school."

"The only thing you did not try," I said, "was what the Archdeacon recommended, a firm hand."

"The Archdeacon never married," said the Canon. "I'm often sorry he didn't. He wouldn't say things like that if he had a child of his own."



CHAPTER XVII

There was a great deal of angry feeling in Ballygore and indeed all through the constituency when Lalage went home. It was generally believed that O'Donoghue, Vittie, and I had somehow driven her away, but this was quite unjust to us and we all three felt it. We felt it particularly when, one night at about twelve o'clock, a large crowd visited us in turn and groaned under our windows. O'Donoghue and Vittie, with a view to ingratiating themselves with the electors, wrote letters to the papers solemnly declaring that they sincerely wished Lalage to return. Nobody believed them. Lalage's teaching had sunk so deep into the popular mind that nobody would have believed anything O'Donoghue and Vittie said even if they had sworn its truth. Titherington, who was beginning to recover, published a counter blast to their letters. He was always quick to seize opportunities and he hoped to increase my popularity by associating me closely with Lalage. He said that I had originally brought her to Ballygore and he left it to be understood that I was an ardent member of the Association for the Suppression of Public Lying. Unfortunately nobody believed him. Lalage's crusade had produced an extraordinary effect. Nobody any longer believed anything, not even the advertisements. My nurse, among others, became affected with the prevailing feeling of scepticism and refused to accept my word for it that I was still seriously ill. Even when I succeeded, by placing it against the hot water bottle in the bottom of my bed, in running up her thermometer to 103 degrees, she merely smiled. And yet a temperature of that kind ought to have convinced her that I really had violent pains somewhere.

The election itself showed unmistakably the popular hatred of public lying. There were just over four thousand electors in the division, but only 530 of them recorded their votes. A good many more, nearly a thousand more, went to the polling booths and deliberately spoiled their voting papers. The returning officer, who kindly came round to my hotel to announce the result, told me that he had never seen so many spoiled votes at any election. The usual way of invalidating the voting paper was to bracket the three names and write "All of them liars" across the paper. Sometimes the word "liars" was qualified by a profane adjective. Sometimes distinctions were made between the candidates and one of us was declared to be a more skilful or determined liar than the other two. O'Donoghue was sometimes placed in the position of the superlative degree of comparison. So was I. But Vittie suffered most frequently in this way. Lalage had always displayed a special virulence in dealing with Vittie's public utterances. The remaining voters, 2470 of them or thereabouts, made a silent protest against our deceitfulness by staying away from the polling booths altogether.

O'Donoghue was elected. He secured 262 of the votes which were not spoiled. I ran him very close, having 260 votes to my credit. Vittie came a bad third, with only eight votes. Vittie, as Titherington told me from the first, never had a chance of success. He was only nominated in the hope that he might take some votes away from me. I hope his friends were satisfied with the result. Three of his eight votes would have given me a majority. Titherington wrote me a long letter some time afterward, as soon, in fact, as he was well enough to do sums. He said that originally, before Lalage came on the scene, I had 1800 firm and reliable supporters, men who would have walked miles through snowstorms to cast their votes for me. O'Donoghue had about the same number who would have acted with equal self-denial on his behalf. Vittie was tolerably sure of two hundred voters and there were about two hundred others who hesitated between Vittie and me, but would rather cut off their right hands than vote for O'Donoghue. I ought, therefore, to have been elected, and I would have been elected, if Lalage had not turned the minds of the voters away from serious political thought. "I do not know," Titherington wrote in a sort of parenthesis, "whether these women hope to advance their cause by tactics of this kind. If they do they are making a bad mistake. No right-thinking man will ever consent to the enfranchisement of a sex capable of treating political life with the levity displayed here by Miss Beresford." It is very curious how hard Titherington finds it to believe that he has made a mistake. He will probably go down to his grave maintaining that the letters A.S.P.L. stand for woman's suffrage, although I pointed out to him more than once that they do not.

The latter part of Titherington's letter was devoted to a carefully reasoned explanation of the actual victory of O'Donoghue. He accounted for it in two ways. O'Donoghue's supporters, being inferior in education and general intelligence to mine, were less likely to be affected by new and heretical doctrines such as Lalage's. A certain amount of mental activity is required in order to go wrong. Also, Lalage's professed admiration for truth made its strongest appeal to my supporters, because O'Donoghue's friends were naturally addicted to lying and loved falsehood for its own sake. My side was, in fact, beaten—I have noticed that this is the case in many elections—because it was intellectually and morally the better side. This theory would have been very consoling to me if I had wanted consolation. I did not. I was far from grudging O'Donoghue his victory. He, so far as I can learn, is just the man to enjoy hearing other people make long speeches. I have never developed a taste for that form of amusement.

The day after the declaration of the result of the election a really serious misfortune befell me. McMeekin himself took influenza. There was a time when I wished very much to hear that he was writhing in the grip of the disease. But those feelings had long passed away from my mind. I no longer wished any ill to McMeekin. I valued him highly as a medical attendant, and I particularly needed his skill just when he was snatched away from me, because my nurse was becoming restive. She hinted at first, and then roundly asserted that I was perfectly well. Nothing but McMeekin's determined diagnosis of obscure affections of my heart, lungs, and viscera kept her to her duties. She made more than one attempt to take me out for a drive. I resisted her, knowing that a drive would, in the end, take me to the railway station and from that home to be embroiled in the contest between Lalage and the Diocesan Synod. I had a letter from my mother urging me to return home at once and hinting at the possibility of unpleasantness over the election of the new bishop. This made me the more determined to stay where I was, and so McMeekin's illness was a very serious blow to me.