“Let it go at that, Mannering,” he said.  “I believe that you will come back to us.  We shall be always glad of your support, but of course you will understand that the position from to-day is changed.  If you had carried the standard, as we had hoped, the reward also was to have been yours.  We must elect one of ourselves to take your place.  To put it plainly, your defection now releases us from all pledges.”

“I understand,” Mannering answered.  “It was scarcely ambition which brought me back into politics, and I must work for the cause in which I believe.  If I am forced to take any definite action, I shall, of course, resign my seat.”

The door closed behind him.  Borrowdean struck a match, and Lord Redford looked thoughtfully out of the window across the park.

“I was always afraid of this,” Borrowdean said, gloomily.  “There is a leaven of madness in the man.”

Lord Redford shrugged his shoulders.

“Genius or madness,” he remarked.  “We may yet see him a modern Rienzi carried into power on the shoulders of the people.  Such a man might become anything.  As a matter of fact, I think that he will go back into his study.  He has the brain to fashion wonderful thoughts, and the lips to fire them into life.  But I doubt his adaptability.  I cannot imagine him ever becoming a real and effective force.”

Borrowdean, who was bitterly disappointed, smoked furiously.

“We shall see,” he said.  “If Mannering is not for us, I think that I can at least promise that he does no harm on the other side.”

Lord Redford turned away from the window.  He eyed Borrowdean curiously.

“It was you,” he remarked, “who brought Mannering back into public life.  You had a certain reward for it, and you would have had a much greater one if things had gone our way.  But I want you to remember this.  Mannering is best left alone—­now, for the present.  You understand me?”

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders.  There was a good deal too much sentiment in politics.

* * * * *

Mannering and Berenice came together for a few moments on the terrace after dinner.  He was not so completely engrossed in his own affairs as to fail to notice her lack of colour and a certain weariness of manner, which had kept her more silent than usual during the whole evening.

“Well?” she said.

“There is nothing definite,” he answered.  “You see, the question of tariff reform is not before the House at present, and Redford does not require me to resign my seat.  But of course it will come to that sooner or later.”