DEATH DEFIED.
Constantine Blair, no less active and soon little less serene in opposition than in power, felt himself more than justified in all that he had ever said about Weston Marchmont when he received an intimation of Marchmont's intention to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. Yet he was aghast at this voluntary retirement into the wilderness of private life, a life without bustle, without gossip, without that sense of being intimate with the march of affairs and behind the scenes of the national theatre. There were reasons assigned, of course. One was that Marchmont found himself ("I'll bet he does!" groaned Constantine with anticipatory resignation) more in agreement with the other side than with his own on an important question of foreign politics then to the front. But this state of matters had ceased to be unusual with him and hardly in itself accounted for the step he was now taking. The care of his estate was the second reason, properly dismissed as plainly frivolous. In the end of the letter more sincerity peeped out, as the writer lapsed from formality into friendship. "I know I shall surprise many people and grieve some, but I'm sick of the thing. I can't endure the perpetual haggling between what I ought to do and what I'm expected to do; the compromises that result satisfy me as little as anybody. In fine, my dear Constantine, I'm going back to my pictures, my books, my hills, and my friends." Constantine read with a genuine sorrow and criticised with a contemptuous sniff. Pictures, books—and hills! Hills! It was insulting his intelligence. And though friends were all very well, yet where was the use of them if a man deprived himself of all the sources of entertaining conversation? But there was nothing to be done—except to tell Lady Castlefort a day before the rest of the world knew. Constantine held her favour on that tenure. She showed no surprise.
"A loss to the country, but not to us," she said.
"Just what I think," agreed Constantine, with a revival of cheerfulness.
"If I hadn't known him since he was so high, I'd wish he had the what-do-you-call-it seizures instead of the other man."
"But Quisanté's not going, he means to hold on," said Constantine. "I'm glad of it. Henstead's very shaky. But we shall hold Marchmont's seat all right. We're going to put up Dick Benyon."
"He's safe enough, he won't worry you," said Lady Castlefort. "You'll have to fight Henstead before long, all the same. The man'll die, you know."
"Think so?" asked Constantine uneasily.
"And he will be a loss—a loss to us, whatever one may think about the country." Constantine looked troubled. "Oh, it's not your business to think about the country—or mine either, thank goodness," she added rather irritably. She was more distressed about Weston Marchmont than she chose to tell; and it was impossible not to be annoyed at the perversity. Of the two men whom she had singled out for greatness one might go on but would not, the other asked nothing but to be allowed to go on, and found refusal at the hands of fate. There was another thing in her thoughts too. She had a strong belief in hostesses, natural to her, perhaps not unreasonable. In either of two events she had foreseen an ideal hostess for the party in the woman she still thought of as May Gaston. There was no need to detail the two events; suffice it to say that, whichever of them now happened, it appeared that May Gaston would not be able to figure as a great hostess; at least there would have to rise for her some star not yet visible in the heavens.