The politics he would have to adopt made him wince, for he knew the platitudes they entailed; and in preference he thought of the paradoxes with which he would stupefy the House, the daring and originality he would show in introducing subjects that, till then, no one had dared to touch upon.  With the politics of his party he had little intention of concerning himself, for his projects were to make for himself a reputation as an orator, and having confirmed it to seek another constituency at the close of the present Parliament.  Such intention lay dormant in the background of his mind, but he had not seen many Irish Nationalists before he was effervescing with rhetoric suitable for the need of the election, and he was sometimes puzzled to determine whether he was false or true.

Driving through Dublin from the steamer, he met Frank Escott.  They shouted simultaneously to their carmen to stop.

“Home to London.  I’ve just come from Cashel.  I went to try to effect some sort of reconciliation with Mount Rorke; but—­and you, where are you going?”

“I’m going to Cashel.  I’m going to contest the town in the Parnellite interest.”

Each pair of eyes was riveted on the other.  For both men thought of the evening when Mike had received the letter notifying that Lady Seeley had left him five thousand a year, and Frank had read in the evening paper that Lady Mount Rorke had given birth to a son.  Frank was, as usual, voluble and communicative.  He dilated on the painfulness of the salutations of the people he had met on the way going from the station to Mount Rorke; and, instead of walking straight in, as in old times, he had to ask the servant to take his name.

“Burton, the old servant who had known me since I was a boy, seemed terribly cut up, and he was evidently very reluctant to speak the message.  ‘I’m very sorry, Mr. Frank,’ he said, ’but his lordship says he is too unwell to see any one to-day, sir; he is very sorry, but if you would write’ ...  If I would write! think of it, I who was once his heir, and used the place as if it were mine!  Poor old Burton was quite overcome.  He tried to ask me to come into the dining-room and have some lunch.  If I go there again I shall be asked into the servants’ hall.  And at that moment the nurse came, wheeling the baby in the perambulator through the hall, going out for an airing.  I tried not to look, but couldn’t restrain my eyes, and the nurse stopped and said, ’Now then, dear, give your hand to the gentleman, and tell him your name.’  The little thing looked up, its blue eyes staring out of its sallow face, and it held out the little putty-like hand.  Poor old Burton turned aside, he couldn’t stand it any longer, and walked into the dining-room.”

“And how did you get away?” asked Mike, who saw his friend’s misfortune in the light of an exquisite chapter in a novel.  “How sad the old place must have seemed to you!”

“You are thinking how you could put it in a book—­how brutal you are!”