“Oh, of course it’s a game too; most things are.  But, of course, one’s a Conservative and all that, if one’s a person of sense.  It’s the only thing to be, you know.”

“I rather like both sides,” said Peter.  “They’re both so keen, and so sure they’re right.  But I expect Conservatives are the rightest, because they want to keep things.  I hate people who want to make a mess and break things up and throw them away.  Besides, I suppose one couldn’t really be on the same side as what’s his name—­that man everyone dislikes so—­could one? or any of those violent people.”

Urquhart said one certainly couldn’t.  Besides, there were Free Trade and Home Rule, and dozens of other things to be considered.  Obviously Conservatives were right.

“I ought to get in,” he said, “unless anything upsets it.  The Unionist majority last time was two hundred and fifty.”

Peter laughed.  It was rather nice to hear Denis talking like a real candidate.

When Denis was ready, he said, “I’m dining in Norfolk Street.  Can you walk with me part of the way?”

Peter said it was on the way to Brook Street, where he lived.  Denis displayed no interest in Brook Street.  As far as he intended to cultivate Peter’s acquaintance, it was to be as a unit, detached from his disgraceful relatives.  Peter understood that.  As he hadn’t much expected to be cultivated again at all, he was in good spirits as he walked with Denis to Norfolk Street.  No word passed between them as to Peter’s past disgrace or present employment; Denis had an easy way of sliding lightly over embarrassing subjects.

They parted, and Denis dined in Norfolk Street with a parliamentary secretary, and Peter supped in Brook Street with the other boarders.

CHAPTER XII

THE LOSS OF A GOBLET AND OTHER THINGS

Denis and Lucy were married at the end of September.  They went motoring in Italy for a month, and by the beginning of November were settled at Astleys.  Astleys was in Berkshire, and was Urquhart’s home.  It was rather beautiful, as homes go, with a careless, prosperous grace about it at which Lucy laughed because it was so Urquhartesque.

Almost at once they asked some people to stay there to help with the elections and the pheasant shooting.  The elections were hoped for in December.  Urquhart did not propose to bother much about them; he was a good deal more interested in the pheasants; but he had, of course, every intention of doing the usual and suitable things, and carrying the business through well.  Lucy only laughed; to want to get into Parliament was so funny, looked at from the point of view she had always been used to.  Denis, being used by inheritance and upbringing to another point of view, did not see that it was so funny; to him it was a very natural profession for a man to go into; his family had always provided a supply of members for both houses.  Lucy and Peter, socially more obscure, laughed childishly together over it.  “Fancy being a Liberal or a Conservative out of all the things there are in the world to be!” as Peter had once commented.