So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting, championing, explaining; while Wharton, laden with parliamentary business, vivid, unabashed, and resourceful, let it be known to all whom it concerned that in his solicitor’s opinion he had a triumphant answer to all charges; and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the soreness of those poor devils of shareholders.

The hours passed on.  Wednesday was mainly spent by Wharton in a series of conferences and intrigues either at the House or at his club; when he drove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged—­the train irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of the party certain.

Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable; but the vehemence and rancour shown by the great Nehemiah during the summer in the pursuit of his anti-Wharton campaign had to some extent defeated themselves.  A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not a formidable weapon.  Wharton would have felt perfectly easy on the subject but for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins’s part during the last forty-eight hours—­whenever, in fact, the two men had run across each other in the House—­marked by a sort of new and insolent good humour, that puzzled him.  But there is a bravado of defeat.  Yes!—­he thought Wilkins was disposed of.

From his present point of ease—­debts paid, banker propitiated, income assured—­it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnight before.  Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain it must have been accepted.  After all his luck had held!  Once get through this odious company business—­as to which, with a pleasing consciousness of turning the tables, he had peremptorily instructed Mr. Pearson himself—­and the barque of his fortunes was assured.

Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs from him.  His very hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood.  There stole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought—­a world well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rule small inclination to dwell therein.  But he was touched and shaken to-night by his own achievement.  The heavenly powers had been unexpectedly kind to him, and he was half moved to offer them something in return.

“Do as you are done by”—­that was an ethic he understood.  And in moments of feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to his friends or enemies in the House of Commons.  He had done this doubtful thing—­but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another?  Vague philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his mind.  The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christian never.  He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament.  Perhaps the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne.  He would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling to think of.