Selina laughed.

“Don’t be too unkind,” she said.  “That’s the worst of you men.  When you do find anything out you are always so severe.”

“After all, though,” Louise remarked, with a sidelong glance, “it must be very, very interesting to meet these sort of people, even if one doesn’t quite belong to their set.  I should think you must find every one else quite tame, Mr. Brooks.”

“I can assure you I don’t,” he answered, coolly.  “This evening has provided me with quite as pleasant society as ever I should wish for.”

Selina beamed upon him.

“Oh, Mr. Brooks, you are terrible.  You do say such things!” she declared, archly.

Louise laughed a little hardly.

“We mustn’t take too much to ourselves, dear,” she said.  “Remember that Mr. Brooks walked all the way up from the Secular Hall with Mary.”

Mr. Bullsom threw down his paper with a little impatient exclamation.

“Come, come!” he said.  “I want to have a few words with Brooks myself, if you girls’ll give me a chance.  Heard anything from Henslow lately, eh?”

Brooks leaned forward.

“Not a word!” he answered.

Mr. Bullsom grunted.

“H’m!  He’s taken his seat, and that’s all he does seem to have done.  To have heard his last speech here before polling time you would have imagined him with half-a-dozen questions down before now.  He’s letting the estimates go by, too.  There are half-a-dozen obstructors, all faddists, but Henslow, with a real case behind him, is sitting tight.  ’Pon my word, I’m not sure that I like the fellow.”

“I ventured to write to him the other evening,” Brooks said, “and I have sent him all the statistics we promised, he seems to have regarded my letter as an impertinence, though, for he has never answered it.”

“You mark my words,” Mr. Bullsom said, doubling the paper up and bringing it down viciously upon his knee, “Henslow will never sit again for Medchester.  There was none too mulch push about him last session, but he smoothed us all over somehow.  He’ll not do it again.  I’m losing faith in the man, Brooks.”

Brooks was genuinely disturbed.  His own suspicions had been gathering strength during the last few weeks.  Henslow had been pleasant enough, but a little flippant after the election.  From London he had promised to write to Mr. Bullsom, as chairman of his election committee, mapping out the course of action which, in pursuance of his somewhat daring pledges, he proposed to embark upon.  This was more than a month ago, and there had come not a single word from him.  All that vague distrust which Brooks had sometimes felt in the man was rekindled and increased, and with it came a flood of bitter thoughts.  Another opportunity then was to be lost.  For seven years longer these thousands of pallid, heart-weary men and women were to suffer, with no one to champion their cause.  He saw again that sea of eager faces in the market-place, lit with a sudden gleam of hope as they listened to the bold words of the man who was promising them life and hope and better things.  Surely if this was a betrayal it was an evil deed, not passively to be borne.