Lorne Murchison went out into the companionship of Main Street, the new check in his fortunes hanging before him.  We may imagine that it hung heavily; we may suppose that it cut off the view.  As Bingham would have said, he was “up against it” and that, when one is confidently treading the straight path to accomplishment, is a dazing experience.  He was up against it, yet already he had recoiled far enough to consider it; already he was adapting his heart, his nerves, and his future to it.  His heart took it greatly, told him he had not yet force enough for the business he had aspired to, but gave him a secret assurance.  Another time he would find more strength and show more cunning; he would not disdain the tools of diplomacy and desirability, he would dream no more of short cuts in great political departures.  His heart bowed to its sorry education and took counsel with him, bidding him be of good courage and push on.  He was up against it, but he would get round it, and there on the other side lay the same wide prospect, with the Idea shining high.  At one point he faltered, but that was a matter of expediency rather than of courage.  He searched and selected, as he went along the street, among phrases that would convey his disaster to Dora Milburn.

Just at that point, the turning to his own office, he felt it hard luck that Alfred Hesketh should meet and want a word with him.  Hesketh had become tolerable only when other things were equal.  Lorne had not seen him since the night of his election, when his felicitations had seemed to stand for very little one way or another.  His manner now was more important charged with other considerations.  Lorne waited on the word, uncomfortably putting off the necessity of coming out with his misfortune.

“I haven’t come across you, Murchison, but you’ve had my sympathy, I needn’t say, all this time.  A man can’t go into politics with gloves on, there’s no doubt about that.  Though mind you, I never for a moment believed that you let yourself in personally.  I mean, I’ve held you all through, above the faintest suspicion.”

“Have you?” said Lorne.  “Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful.”

“Oh, I have—­I assure you!  But give me a disputed election for the revelation of a rotten state of things—­eh?”

“It does show up pretty low, doesn’t it?”

“However, upon my word, I don’t know whether it’s any better in England.  At bottom we’ve got a lower class to deal with, you know.  I’m beginning to have a great respect for the electorate of this country, Murchison—­not necessarily the methods, but the rank and file of the people.  They know what they want, and they’re going to have it.”

“Yes,” said Lorne, “I guess they are.”

“And that brings me to my news, old man.  I’ve given the matter a lot of time and a lot of consideration, and I’ve decided that I can’t do better than drive in a stake for myself in this new country of yours.”