"Pooh!" said Harold, rising and walking along the room.
But Mrs. Transome went on with growing anger in her voice—"It seems to me that a man owes something to his birth and station, and has no right to take up this notion or other, just as it suits his fancy; still less to work at the overthrow of his class. That was what every one said of Lord Grey, and my family at least is as good as Lord Grey's. You have wealth now, and might distinguish yourself in the county; and if you had been true to your colors as a gentleman, you would have had all the greater opportunity, because the times are so bad. The Debarrys and Lord Wyvern would have set all the more store by you. For my part, I can't conceive what good you propose to yourself. I only entreat you to think again before you take any decided step."
"Mother," said Harold, not angrily or with any raising of his voice, but in a quick, impatient manner, as if the scene must be got through as quickly as possible; "it is natural that you should think in this way. Women, very properly, don't change their views, but keep to the notions in which they have been brought up. It doesn't signify what they think—they are not called upon to judge or to act. You must leave me to take my own course in these matters, which properly belong to men. Beyond that, I will gratify any wish you may choose to mention. You shall have a new carriage and a pair of bays all to yourself; you shall have the house done up in first-rate style, and I am not thinking of marrying. But let us understand that there shall be no further collision between us on subjects on which I must be master of my own actions."
"And you will put the crown to the mortifications of my life, Harold. I don't know who would be a mother if she could foresee what a slight thing she will be to her son when she is old."
Mrs. Transome here walked out of the room by the nearest way—the glass door open toward the terrace. Mr. Jermyn had risen too, and his hands were on the back of his chair. He looked quite impassive: it was not the first time he had seen Mrs. Transome angry; but now, for the first time, he thought the outburst of her temper would be useful to him. She, poor woman, knew quite well that she had been unwise, and that she had been making herself disagreeable to Harold to no purpose. But half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless—nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter. Harold continued his walking a moment longer, and then said to Jermyn—
"You smoke?"
"No, I always defer to the ladies. Mrs. Jermyn is peculiarly sensitive in such matters, and doesn't like tobacco."
Harold, who, underneath all the tendencies which had made him a Liberal, had intense personal pride, thought, "Confound the fellow—with his Mrs. Jermyn! Does he think we are on a footing for me to know anything about his wife?"
"Well, I took my hookah before breakfast," he said aloud, "so, if you like, we'll go into the library. My father never gets up till midday, I find."
"Sit down, sit down," said Harold, as they entered the handsome, spacious library. But he himself continued to stand before a map of the county which he had opened from a series of rollers occupying a compartment among the bookshelves. "The first question, Mr. Jermyn, now you know my intentions, is, whether you will undertake to be my agent in this election, and help me through? There's no time to be lost, and I don't want to lose my chance, as I may not have another for seven years. I understand," he went on, flashing a look straight at Jermyn, "that you have not taken any conspicuous course in politics, and I know that Labron is agent for the Debarrys."