“No, I do not mean that. I should like to see you there; but I would rather you fought your seat like other men, and did not profit by the very abuse you seek to overthrow.”
“Seats are only won by wading through a sink of iniquity!” said Eustace bitterly; and Bride was silent, her face growing sternly sorrowful. Her heart often grew heavy within her as she realised the terrible wickedness of the great world without.
“No seat is worth that,” she said softly; but Eustace could not agree with her.
“We must purify legislation; we must so work that a new and perfect system rises from the ashes of the old!” he cried, his quick enthusiasm firing at the thought. “Men can and shall be raised. We shall one day see the dawn of a brighter and purer day. This is but the hour of darkness which precedes the dawn. The brightness of the day will atone for all. You will live to see a new world yet, Bride!”
A sudden light sprang into her eyes. For a moment her face was transfigured; but as she looked at him that light died out. She realised how widely apart were their ideas of a new world.
CHAPTER XIV
EUSTACE’S DILEMMA
“SHE is right in theory—she is perfectly right. She holds the stronger position. But yet I cannot give it up. One cannot live in the world, and breathe an atmosphere so far above it as she does. The thing is not possible. What!—go back to London—go back to my friends there, and say that I cannot accept my kinsman’s seat, because in right and justice he should not have it to give! What a howl of derision I should provoke! And to have to confess that my adviser in this was a girl years younger than myself, who had hardly left her sea-girt home all her life—who knows no more of the world than the babe in the nursery! Why, I should become a laughing-stock to the whole of the town! I should never be able to face the world again. No, no, no—such scruples are untenable. A great work has to be done, and men are wanted of birth, energy, determination, and probity; I think I may, without undue self-appreciation, assert that I possess all these needful qualifications. Better men than myself have told me so. First let us get the upper hand, and then we will see what may be done for purifying the country and raising a higher and a better standard. If the world would listen to such teachings as Bride’s, I will not say the world might not be a better place; but if it will not—why, we must needs employ tools more fitted for the work. To be deterred by such a scruple!—no—it would be unworthy of the Cause!”