“Well, Tooting,” he said, “I thought they’d begin to come.”

“They’re mostly women,” Mr. Tooting informed him.

“Women!”

“Hold on!” said Mr. Tooting, who had the true showman’s instinct.  “Can’t you see that folks are curious?  They’re afraid to come ’emselves, and they’re sendin’ their wives and daughters.  If you get the women tonight, they’ll go home and club the men into line.”

Eight strokes boomed out from the tower of the neighbouring town hall, and an expectant flutter spread over the audience,—­a flatter which disseminated faint odours of sachet and other mysterious substances in which feminine apparel is said to the laid away.  The stage was empty, save for a table which held a pitcher of water and a glass.

“It’s a pretty good imitation of a matinee,” Hastings Weare remarked.  “I wonder whom the front seats are reserved for.  Say, Victoria, there’s your friend Mr. Vane in the corner.  He’s looking over here.”

“He has a perfect right to look where he chooses,” said Victoria.  She wondered whether he would come over and sit next to her if she turned around, and decided instantly that he wouldn’t.  Presently, when she thought Hastings was off his guard, she did turn, to meet, as she expected, Austen’s glance fixed upon her.  Their greeting was the signal of two people with a mutual understanding.  He did not rise, and although she acknowledged to herself a feeling of disappointment, she gave him credit for a nice comprehension of the situation.  Beside him was his friend Tom Gaylord, who presented to her a very puzzled face.  And then, if there had been a band, it would have been time to play “See, the Conquering Hero Comes!”

Why wasn’t there a band?  No such mistake, Mr. Tooting vowed, should be made at the next rally.

It was Mrs. Pomfret who led the applause from her box as the candidate walked modestly up the side aisle and presently appeared, alone, on the stage.  The flutter of excitement was renewed, and this time it might almost be called a flutter of apprehension.  But we who have heard Mr. Crewe speak are in no alarm for our candidate.  He takes a glass of iced water; he arranges, with the utmost sangfroid, his notes on the desk and adjusts the reading light.  Then he steps forward and surveys the scattered groups.

“Ladies—­” a titter ran through the audience,—­a titter which started somewhere in the near neighbourhood of Mr. Hastings Weare—­and rose instantly to several hysterical peals of feminine laughter.  Mrs. Pomfret, outraged, sweeps the frivolous offenders with her lorgnette; Mr. Crewe, with his arm resting, on the reading-desk, merely raises the palm of his hand to a perpendicular reproof,—­“and gentlemen.”  At this point the audience is thoroughly cowed.  “Ladies and gentlemen and fellow citizens.  I thank you for the honour you have done me in coming here to listen to the opening speech of my campaign to-night.  It is a campaign