"I can't do it now. I must have some fresh air," he exclaimed petulantly. "This place suffocates me."
He opened the window and hailed a hack-victoria that was crawling by. Calling to Daisy to tell her he was going for a drive, he ran down-stairs and jumped in.
"Go to the Park," he said. "You needn't hurry."
The air revived his spirits. He leant back, sniffing its freshness, and finding the world very good. He met few people about and no one that he knew. The Park was empty, and the old horse jogged along peacefully. Insensibly he found himself thinking about what would happen when the new House met, and sparing a smile for Coxon's defeat, though he was afraid that gentle
man would be only too well provided for. It struck him that a pitfall or two lay in Sir Robert's path, and he saw his way to giving Kilshaw a bad quarter of an hour over one of his election speeches. The only thing that he could not get away from was the thought of Alicia Derosne. He knew that there was to be nothing more between him and her, and that she was going away soon, never to return to, soon in all probability to forget, New Lindsey; yet all his doings and activities in the future—and his brain began now to be swift to plan them again—presented themselves to him, not in the actual happening, but as they would look when read by her. This lover's madness irritated him so much that at last he took her letter from his pocket and tore it into little bits, scattering them on the breeze. He could answer it well enough from memory, and perhaps it would be easier to be his own man again when he had no tangible, material reminder of her with him. These things only made a man nurse and cosset fine-drawn feelings, spying curiously into a heart that might get well if it were covered up and left alone.
A cheery voice roused him, and his carriage stopped.
"Well, tearing up your bills, eh?" called the Chief Justice from the side-walk. "You must be glad to be out of it."
"Not I," answered Medland, smiling. "Among other things, I wanted to appoint your successor."
"Ah, dreadful, dreadful! Young Coxon, isn't it? I've been laid up with a cold, and seen and heard nothing, but I fancy that's right."