The senator pondered a moment.

“It’s been badly managed,” he muttered; “there’s no doubt of that.  Hunt must be got out of the way.  When Bascom and Botcher come, tell them I want to see them in my room, not in Number Seven.”

And with this impressive command, received with nods of understanding, Senator Whitredge advanced slowly towards Number Seven, knocked, and entered.  Be it known that Mr. Flint, with characteristic caution, had not confided even to the senator that the Honourable Hilary had had a stroke.

“Ah, Vane,” he said, in his most affable tones, “how are you?”

The Honourable Hilary, who was looking over some papers, shot at him a glance from under his shaggy eyebrows.

“Came in here to find out—­didn’t you, Whitredge?” he replied.

“What?” said the senator, taken aback; and for once at a loss for words.

The Honourable Hilary rose and stood straighter than usual, and looked the senator in the eye.

“What’s your diagnosis?” he asked.  “Superannuated—­unfit for duty —­unable to cope with the situation ready to be superseded?  Is that about it?”

To say that Senator Whitredge was startled and uncomfortable would be to put his case mildly.  He had never before seen Mr. Vane in this mood.

“Ha-ha!” he laughed; “the years are coming over us a little, aren’t they?  But I guess it isn’t quite time for the youngsters to step in yet.”

“No, Whitredge,” said Mr. Vane, slowly, without taking his eye from the senator’s, “and it won’t be until this convention is over.  Do you understand?”

“That’s the first good news I’ve heard this morning,” said the senator, with the uneasy feeling that, in some miraculous way, the Honourable Hilary had read the superseding orders from highest authority through his pocket.

“You may take it as good news or bad news, as you please, but it’s a fact.  And now I want ‘you’ to tell Ridout that I wish to see him again, and to bring in Doby, who is to be chairman of the convention.”

“Certainly,” assented the senator, with alacrity, as he started for the door.  Then he turned.  “I’m glad to see you’re all right, Vane,” he added; “I’d heard that you were a little under the weather—­a bilious attack on account of the heat—­that’s all I meant.”  He did not wait for an answer, nor would he have got one.  And he found Mr. Ridout in the hall.

“Well?” said the lawyer, expectantly, and looking with some curiosity at the senator’s face.

“Well,” said Mr. Whitredge, with marked impatience, “he wants to see you right away.”

All day long Hilary Vane held conference in Number Seven, and at six o’clock sent a request that the Honourable Adam visit him.  The Honourable Adam would not come; and the fact leaked out—­through the Honourable Adam.

“He’s mad clean through,” reported the Honourable Elisha Jane, to whose tact and diplomacy the mission had been confided.  “He said he would teach Flint a lesson.  He’d show him he couldn’t throw away a man as useful and efficient as he’d been, like a sucked orange.”