“Plucky of her to come back here!” said Bobbie.  “And how’s Lady Lucy?”

Lady Niton moved impatiently.

“Lucy would be all right if her son wouldn’t join a set of traitors in jockeying the man who put him into Parliament, and has been Lucy’s quasi-husband for twenty years!”

“Oh, you think he is in the plot?”

“Of course, Lucy swears he isn’t.  But if not—­why isn’t Ferrier here?  His own election was over a week ago.  In the natural course of things he would have been staying here since then, and speaking for Oliver.  Not a word of it!  I’m glad he’s shown a little spirit at last!  He’s put up with it about enough.”

“And Lady Lucy’s fretting?”

“She don’t like it—­particularly when he comes to stay with Sir James Chide and not at Tallyn.  Such a thing has never happened before.”

“Poor old Ferrier!” said Bobbie, with a shrug of the shoulders.

Lady Niton drew herself up fiercely.

“Don’t pity your betters, sir!  It’s disrespectful.”

Bobbie smiled.  “You know the Ministry’s resigned?”

“About time!  What have they been hanging on for so long?”

“Well, it’s done at last.  I found a wire from the club waiting for me here.  The Queen has sent for Broadstone, and the fat’s all in the fire.”

The two fell into an excited discussion of the situation.  The two rival heroes of the electoral six weeks on the Liberal side had been, of course, Ferrier and Lord Philip.  Lord Philip had conducted an astonishing campaign in the Midlands, through a series of speeches of almost revolutionary violence, containing many veiled, or scarcely veiled, attacks on Ferrier.  Ferrier, on the whole held the North; but the candidates in the Midlands had been greatly affected by Lord Philip and Lord Philip’s speeches, and a contagious enthusiasm had spread through whole districts, carrying in the Liberal candidates with a rush.  In the West and South, too, where the Darcy family had many friends and large estates, the Liberal nominees had shown a strong tendency to adopt Lord Philip’s programme and profess enthusiastic admiration for its author.  So that there were now two kings of Brentford.  Lord Philip’s fortunes had risen to a threatening height, and the whole interest of the Cabinet-making just beginning lay in the contest which it inevitably implied between Ferrier and his new but formidable lieutenant.  It was said that Lord Philip had retired to his tent—­alias, his Northamptonshire house—­and did not mean to budge thence till he had got all he wanted out of the veteran Premier.

“As for the papers,” said Bobbie, “you see they’re already at it hammer and tongs.  However, so long as the Herald sticks to Ferrier, he has very much the best of it.  This new editor Barrington is an awfully clever fellow.”

“Barrington!—­Barrington!” said Lady Niton, looking up, “That’s the man who’s coming to-night.”