"That man's simply got hold of her," she said. "She'll think black's white if he says it is. Still she must see that he's treating you shamefully."
"She didn't seem to see it." moaned Dick mournfully. Then he laughed rather bitterly and added, "I tell you what, though. I think that old aunt of his has taken his measure pretty well."
The innate nobility which underlay Lady Richard's nature showed up splendidly at this moment; she sympathised heartily with Dick, and forbore to remind him of what she had said from the beginning, contenting herself with remarking that for her part she never had considered and did not now consider Mr. Quisanté even particularly clever.
"He's as clever as the deuce," said Dick. That conviction, at least, he need not surrender.
"I suppose," ventured Mrs. Gellatly, "that's how he convinces Lady May that he's always right."
Dick looked at her with a touch of covert contempt; clever people could convince the intellect, but there were instincts of honour, of loyalty, and of fidelity which no arguments should be able to blunt or to turn. Here was the thing which, vaguely felt, had so puzzled him in regard to May Quisanté; he had not doubted that she would see the thing as he had seen it—as Quisanté had professed himself unable to see it.
That evening Quisanté brought home to dinner the gentleman whom Dick Benyon called old Foster the maltster, and who had been Mayor of Henstead three several times. He was a tall, stout, white-haired old man with a shrewd kindly face, dressed all in broadcloth, showing an expanse of white shirt-front decorated with a big black stud and a very small black wisp of a tie. His conversation indicated now and then that he gave thought to the other world, always that he knew the ways of this. May liked him in spite of the rather ponderous deference he showed to her; with Quisanté, on the other hand, he was familiar, seeming to say that he could tell the younger man a thing or two; Quisanté's manner did nothing to contradict this implied assumption.
"What we want, sir," said Foster, "is to have you in the Government. Once you're there, you'll sit for Henstead till you die or go to the House of Lords. Nobody'll be able to touch you. But this time's critical, very critical. They'll have a strong candidate, and they'll do all they know to keep you out. It's not a time for offending anybody." He turned to May. "I hope your ladyship will let us see you very often in the town?" he said.
"When the election begins, I shall come down with my husband and stay all the time."
"That's right; you'll be worth a hundred votes." He threw himself back in his chair. "Under God," he said, "we ought to be safe. Your speech had an excellent effect; I sent it to Middleton, and Dunn, and Japhet Williams, and when I met 'em at the Council, they were all most pleasant about it. I think you've undone all the bad impression."