“Everything is topsy-turvy with me, these days,” Paul replied:  “so we’ve just got to stand on our heads and make the best of it.”

And he drove off in the gathering dusk.

Night found him in the great chamber of the Town Hall, with his agent and members of his committee.  Present too were the Liberal Agent and the members of the Liberal Committee.  At one end of the room sat the Mayor of the Borough in robe and chain of office, presiding over the proceedings.  The Returning Officer and his staff sat behind long tables, on which were deposited the sealed ballot boxes brought in from the various polling stations; and these were emptied and the votes were counted, the voting papers for each candidate being done up in bundles of fifty.  Knots of committee-men of both parties stood chatting in low voices.  In an ordinary election both candidates would have chatted together, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred about golf, and would have made an engagement to meet again in milder conflict that day week.  But here Paul was the only candidate to appear, and he sat in a cane-bottomed chair apart from the lounging politicians, feeling curiously an interloper in this vast, solemn and scantily-filled hall.  He was very tired, too tired in body, mind and soul to join in the small-talk of Wilson and his bodyguard.  Besides, they all wore the air of anticipated victory, and for that he held them in detestation.  He had detested them the whole day long.  The faces that yesterday had been long and anxious to-day had been wreathed in smirks.  Wherever he had gone he had found promise of victory in his father’s disgrace.  Passionately the young man, fronting vital issues, longed for his own defeat.

But for the ironical interposition of the high gods, it might have been so different.  Any other candidate against him, he himself buoyed up with his own old glorious faith, his Princess, dazzling meteor illuminating the murky streets—­dear God! what would not have been the joy of battle during the past week, what would not have been the intense thrill, the living of a thousand lives in these few hours of suspense now so dull with dreariness and pain!  He sat apart, his legs crossed, a hand over his eyes.  Wilson and his men, puzzled by his apparent apathy, left him alone.  It is not much use addressing a mute and wooden idol, no matter how physically prepossessing.

The counting went on slowly, relentlessly, and the bundles of fifty on each side grew in bulk, and Paul’s side bulked larger than Silas Finn’s.

At last Wilson could stand it no longer.  He left the group with which he was talking, and came to Paul.  “We’re far ahead already,” he cried excitedly.  “I told you last night would do the trick.”

“Last night,” said Paul, rising and stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets, “my opponent’s supporters passed a vote of confidence in him in a scene of tumultuous enthusiasm.”