And rapidly crossing the floor, swelling with wrath and determination, Bobbie opened the bookcase of first editions which stood in this inner drawing-room and began to replace some volumes, which had strayed from their proper shelves, with a deliberate hand.

“You resemble Oliver in one thing!” Lady Niton threw after him.

“What may that be?” he said, carelessly.

“You both find gratitude inconvenient!”

Bobbie turned and bowed.  “I do!” he said, “inconvenient, and intolerable!  Hullo!—­I hear the carriage.  I beg you to remark that what I told you was confidential.  It is not to be repeated in company.”

Lady Niton had only time to give him a fierce look when the door opened, and Lady Lucy came wearily in.

Bobbie hastened to meet her.

“My dear Lady Lucy!—­what news?”

“Oliver is in!”

“Hurrah!” Bobbie shook her hand vehemently.  “I am glad!”

Lady Niton, controlling herself with difficulty, rose from her seat, and also offered a hand.

“There, you see, Lucy, you needn’t have been so anxious.”

Lady Lucy sank into a chair.

“What’s the majority?” said Bobbie, astonished by her appearance and manner.  “I say, you know, you’ve been working too hard.”

“The majority is twenty-four,” said Lady Lucy, coldly, as though she had rather not have been asked the question; and at the same time, leaning heavily back in her chair, she began feebly to untie the lace strings of her bonnet.  Bobbie was shocked by her appearance.  She had aged rapidly since he had last seen her, and, in particular, a gray shadow had overspread the pink-and-white complexion which had so long preserved her good looks.

On hearing the figures (the majority five years before had been fifteen hundred), Bobbie could not forbear an exclamation which produced another contraction of Lady Lucy’s tired brow.  Lady Niton gave a very audible “Whew!”—­to which she hastened to add:  “Well, Lucy, what does it matter?  Twenty-four is as good as two thousand.”

Lady Lucy roused herself a little.

“Of course,” she said, languidly, “it is disappointing.  But we may be glad it is no worse.  For a little while, during the counting, we thought Oliver was out.  But the last bundles to be counted were all for him, and we just saved it.”  A pause, and then the speaker added, with emphasis:  “It has been a horrid election!  Such ill-feeling—­and violence—­such unfair placards!—­some of them, I am sure, were libellous.  But I am told one can do nothing.”

“Well, my dear, this is what Democracy comes to,” said Lady Niton, taking up her knitting again with vehemence. “’Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin.’  You Liberals have opened the gates—­and now you grumble at the deluge.”

“It has been the injustice shown him by his own side that Oliver minds.”  The speaker’s voice betrayed the bleeding of the inward wound.  “Really, to hear some of our neighbors talk, you would think him a Communist.  And, on the other hand, he and Alicia only just escaped being badly hurt this morning at the collieries—­when they were driving round.  I implored them not to go.  However, they would.  There was an ugly crowd, and but for a few mounted police that came up, it might have been most unpleasant.”