"That's just what the Nun was saying the other night, when I went to see her show."
Harry's faint frown showed again. His recollection of Miss Flower's behaviour at Meriton accused her of a want of real sympathy.
"Ah yes! I don't know who they'll get; but I must have made the seat safe. Just the way one works for another fellow sometimes! It doesn't do to complain."
The office-boy put his head in again—and his hand in front of his head. "Wire just come, sir," he said to Andy, delivered the yellow envelope, and disappeared.
"Open it, old fellow," said Harry, putting an exquisitely shod foot on the table. "Yes, another fellow will take my place; I've done the work, he'll reap the reward. And he'll probably think he's done it all himself!"
Andy fingered his telegram absently, not in impatience; nothing very urgent was to be expected, the great coup had already been made. He laid it down and listened again to Harry Belfield.
"Upon my soul," Harry went on, "I rather envy you your life. A good steady straight job—and only got to stick to it. Now I'm no sooner out of one thing—well out of it—than they begin to kick at me to start another. The pater and Isobel are in the same story about it."
Harry's face was now seriously clouded and his voice peevish. He had been through a great deal of trouble lately; he seemed to himself to be entitled to a rest, to a reasonable interval of undisturbed enjoyment. And he was being bothered about that career of his!
"Well, I suppose you oughtn't to miss the next election. The sooner you go in the better, isn't it?"
"It's not so easy to find a safe seat." Harry assumed that the constituency which he honoured should be one certain properly to appreciate the compliment. "I sometimes think I'd like to chuck the whole thing, and enjoy my life in my own way. Oh, I'm only joking, of course; but when they nag, I jib, you know."