“I mean, do you see him often?”

“Seen him once,” said Mr. Braden.  “G-guess that’s enough.”

“You’re a shrewd judge of human nature, Mr. Braden,” she replied, tapping him on the shoulder with the lorgnette, “but you can have no idea how good he is—­how unceasingly he works for others.  He is not a man who gives much expression to his feelings, as no doubt you have discovered, but if you knew him as I do, you would realize how much affection he has for his country neighbours and how much he has their welfare at heart.”

“Loves ’em—­does he—­loves ’em?”

“He is like an English gentleman in his sense of responsibility,” said Mrs. Pomfret; “over there, you know, it is a part of a country gentleman’s duty to improve the condition of his—­his neighbours.  And then Mr. Crewe is so fond of his townspeople that he couldn’t resist doing this for them,” and she indicated with a sweep of her eyeglasses the beatitude with which they were surrounded.

“Wahn’t no occasion to,” said Mr. Braden.

“What!” cried Mrs. Pomfret, who had been walking on ice for some time.

“This hain’t England—­is it?  Hain’t England?”

“No,” she admitted, “but—­”

“Hain’t England,” said Mr. Braden, and leaned forward until he was within a very few inches of her pearl ear-ring.  “He’ll be chose all right—­d-don’t fret—­he’ll be chose.”

“My dear Mr. Braden, I’ve no doubt of it—­Mr. Crewe’s so popular,” she cried, removing her ear-ring abruptly from the danger zone.  “Do make yourself at home,” she added, and retired from Mr. Braden’s company a trifle disconcerted,—­a new experience for Mrs. Pomfret.  She wondered whether all country people were like Mr. Braden, but decided, after another experiment or two, that he was an original.  More than once during the afternoon she caught sight of him, beaming upon the festivities around him.  But she did not renew the conversation.

To Austen Vane, wandering about the grounds, Mr. Crewe’s party presented a sociological problem of no small interest.  Mr. Crewe himself interested him, and he found himself speculating how far a man would go who charged the fastnesses of the politicians with a determination not to be denied and a bank account to be reckoned with.  Austen talked to many of the Leith farmers whom he had known from boyhood, thanks to his custom of roaming the hills; they were for the most part honest men whose occupation in life was the first thought, and they were content to leave politics to Mr. Braden—­that being his profession.  To the most intelligent of these Mr. Crewe’s garden-party was merely the wanton whim of a millionaire.  It was an open secret to them that Job Braden for reasons of his own had chosen Mr. Crewe to represent them, and they were mildly amused at the efforts of Mrs. Pomfret and her assistants to secure votes which were as certain as the sun’s rising on the morrow.