He stopped and leaned back in his chair. The shame of a young man who has let his tongue wag before his elders and masters seized hold upon him.
"But why did you lead me on to talk this sort of blatter to you?" he asked in an aggrieved voice. "All that I have just learnt you knew long since."
Harry Rames shook his head.
"Your opposition to Devenish's land bill shows it," Burrell insisted. "Oh, we'll have a real policy of land reform, not an act of revenge."
Harry Rames leaned across the corner of the table toward young Burrell. To the youth's eyes he looked at this moment extraordinarily haggard and old.
"I'll tell you, Burrell, why I asked my question. I wanted to recapture from you if I could something of a man's enthusiasm at his first political victory."
Burrell looked at his leader with astonishment. Of the man of fire who had blazed through the constituency from corner to corner with clear ringing phrases and an inexhaustible good-humor there was now nothing left. He was burnt out. He sat with brooding eyes and a white face all fallen into despair. The tale of his years was suddenly written large upon him. Burrell had wit enough to understand that fatigue did not explain the change. A mask was withdrawn; he saw misery like a cancer. Rames sat and betrayed himself like a man in his cups.
"You tell me you felt ashamed in the school-rooms. I never knew anything of such shame. To win, to win, to win! That was all I thought about. That was all the desire I felt. That was what I hoped you would help me to recapture to-night. But you haven't helped."
Rames's eyes dwelt angrily upon his colleague.
"No. You have made me feel ashamed too." Then his face relaxed and he added in a friendlier voice: "I believe that I have helped you--really helped you. Oh, not to win a seat in the House of Commons. That's nothing to be so proud about. But to find your vocation."