“You might talk till doomsday, but every word would be wasted,” he said, irritably.  “I’m past praying for, by something like six years.”

“Then why come here?” Loder was pulling hard on his pipe.  “I’m not a dealer in sympathy.”

“I don’t require sympathy.”  Chilcote rose again.  He was still agitated, but the agitation was quieter.  “I want a much more expensive thing than sympathy—­and I am willing to pay for it.”

The other turned and looked at him.  “I have no possession in the world that would be worth a fiver to you,” he said, coldly.  “You’re either under a delusion or you’re wasting my time.”

Chilcote laughed nervously.  “Wait,” he said.  “Wait.  I only ask you to wait.  First let me sketch you my position —­it won’t take many words: 

“My grandfather was a Chilcote of Westmoreland; he was one of the first of his day and his class to recognize that there was a future in trade, so, breaking his own little twig from the family tree, he went south to Wark and entered a ship-owning firm.  In thirty years’ time he died, the owner of one of the biggest trades in England, having married the daughter of his chief.  My father was twenty-four and still at Oxford when he inherited.  Almost his first act was to reverse my grandfather’s early move by going north and piecing together the family friendship.  He married his first cousin; and then, with the Chilcote prestige revived and the shipping money to back it, he entered on his ambition, which was to represent East Wark in the Conservative interest.  It was a big fight, but he won —­as much by personal influence as by any other.  He was an aristocrat, but he was a keen business-man as well.  The combination carries weight with your lower classes.  He never did much in the House, but he was a power to his party in Wark.  They still use his name there to conjure with.”

Loder leaned forward interestedly.

“Robert Chilcote?” he said.  “I have heard of him.  One of those fine, unostentatious figures—­strong in action, a little narrow in outlook, perhaps, but essential to a country’s staying power.  You have every reason to be proud of your father.”

Chilcote laughed suddenly.  “How easily we sum up, when a matter is impersonal!  My father may have been a fine figure, but he shouldn’t have left me to climb to his pedestal.”

Loder’s eyes questioned.  In his newly awakened interest he had let his pipe go out.

“Don’t you grasp my meaning?” Chilcote went on.  “My father died and I was elected for East Wark.  You may say that if I had no real inclination for the position I could have kicked.  But I tell you I couldn’t.  Every local interest, political and commercial, hung upon the candidate being a Chilcote.  I did what eight men out of ten would have done.  I yielded to pressure.”

“It was a fine opening!” The words escaped Loder.