“I hope I shall get my turn before dinner,” said Bennett, as he was going; “I want badly to get off for an hour or so.  The division won’t be till half-past ten at earliest.”

Wharton stood for a moment in a brown study, with his hands in his pockets, after Bennett left him.  It was by no means wholly clear to him what line Bennett would take—­with regard to one or two points.  After a long acquaintance with the little man, Wharton was not always, nor indeed generally, at his ease with him.  Bennett had curious reserves.  As to his hour off, Wharton felt tolerably certain that he meant to go and hear a famous Revivalist preacher hold forth at a public hall not far from the House.  The streets were full of placards.

Well!—­to every man his own excitements!  What time?  He looked first at his watch, then at the marked question paper Bennett had left behind him.  The next minute he was hurrying along passages and stairs, with his springing, boyish step, to the Ladies’ Gallery.

The magnificent doorkeeper saluted him with particular deference.  Wharton was in general a favourite with officials.

“The two ladies are come, sir.  You’ll find them in the front—­oh! not very full yet, sir—­will be directly.”

Wharton drew aside the curtain of the Gallery, and looked in.  Yes!—­there was the dark head bent forward, pressed indeed against the grating which closes the front of the den into which the House of Commons puts its ladies—­as though its owner were already absorbed in what was passing before her.

She looked up with an eager start, as she heard his voice in her ear.

“Oh! now, come and tell us everything—­and who everybody is.  Why don’t we see the Speaker?—­and which is the Government side?—­oh, yes, I see.  And who’s this speaking now?”

“Why, I thought you knew everything,” said Wharton as, with a greeting to Miss Craven, he slipped in beside them and took a still vacant chair for an instant.  “How shall I instruct a Speaker’s great-niece?”

“Why, of course I feel as if the place belonged to me!” said Marcella, impatiently; “but that somehow doesn’t seem to help me to people’s names.  Where’s Mr. Gladstone?  Oh, I see.  Look, look, Edith!—­he’s just come in!—­oh, don’t be so superior, though you have been here before—­you couldn’t tell me heaps of people!”

Her voice had a note of joyous excitement like a child’s.

“That’s because I’m short-sighted,” said Edith Craven, calmly; “but it’s no reason why you should show me Mr. Gladstone.”

“Oh, my dear, my dear!—­do be quiet!  Now, Mr. Wharton, where are the Irishmen?  Oh!  I wish we could have an Irish row!  And where do you sit?—­I see—­and there’s Mr. Bennett—­and that black-faced man, Mr. Wilkins, I met at the Hallins—­you don’t like him, do you?” she said, drawing back and looking at him sharply.

“Who?  Wilkins?  Perhaps you’d better ask me that question later on!” said Wharton, with a twist of the lip; “he’s going to do his best to make a fool of himself and us to-night—­we shall see!  It’s kind of you to wish us an Irish row!—­considering that if I miss my chance to-night I shall never get another!”