Captain Templeton had just won a seat for his party in a three-cornered contest. He detailed with considerable verve the intrigues necessary to induce a labor candidate to run and split the vote. The Liberal's wife had social ambitions. "I hope we shall meet in town, Captain Templeton," she had said after the poll. "We're Liberal; but naturally most of our friends are on your side of the house."
At the top of the table, with his noble old ivory-white face, silver hair, and limitless shirt-front, their host sat, a fine flower of democracy, and enjoyed his daughter's social success. His ponderous civilities failed to absorb the little Italian marchesina on his right (Gioconda, they say, of the Fool's Errand). Her heart was at the noisy end of the table; continually, at some new outburst, she would clap her tiny ringed hands autocratically for silence. "What is this? What is this? I have not heard well." Things had to be repeated, explained, for her benefit.
Paul was nearest the door, and rose to open it as the women passed out. His hostess, who had barely addressed a word to him during dinner, bent forward as she passed and reminded him of his promise. Lumsden was the only man who seemed to notice the incident; and Ingram thought he caught the tail end of a look of intelligence as he returned to the table. But it was gone instantly, and presently the men drew to the side next the fire and began to talk tariffs. Tongue-tied amidst the women's chatter, their host easily dominated the conversation now. He spoke of Republican prospects at the Mid-West conventions, their intimate association with business prosperity, discussed the new influences at Washington with good-natured banter, predicted worse times before a "banner-year," hinted what was worth watching meantime. The men listened to him intently—even Lumsden—carelessly, sipping their coffee or rolling their liqueurs round and round in tiny gilt glasses. Every word was golden now. Art, literature, philosophy, all the visions that visit an idle mood, blew off like mists when the sun mounts the sky. Paul, watching him in silence, felt an involuntary respect, a pride despite himself, in their common nationality.
"You're force," he was saying to himself, "blind Titanic force—that's what you are. And our business is with you and not with this trash that cumbers the ground and obscures the issue; these parasites, who imagine the things their own hearts covet were the incentive to men like yourself, who corrupt you because they fear you, and with grave, attentive faces are trying to make you believe now that there's great personal merit in what you've been doing. You've sucked up riches from a disorganized society that your energy took unawares, because you couldn't help it, and you spend it on yourselves because you don't know any better way. Well, we must show you one. The force that creates, the wisdom that could distribute—these two are groping for each other through a maze of laws, human and divine, that the world has outgrown. They must mingle, must come together, must interpenetrate, and if priests and judges hinder, then priests and judges must go. They were made for man, not man for them."
"... so if you've bought warrants at sixty-three merely on the report of divisions inside the amalgamation, you haven't done badly, Lumsden. And now, Lord Hatherley, what do you say? Shall we join the ladies upstairs?"
An hour later Ingram was alone with his host and hostess. His presence, ami de maison as he had become, did not restrain Mr. Rees from a palpable yawn.
"You look tired, father," said Althea, putting her arm over his broad shoulder. "What are you going to do? Mr. Ingram and I have something to talk over."
"I think I shall read Lew Wallace for half an hour, honey, and then go to bed. Have my hot milk sent to the study."
"Let us go upstairs to my own room," said Althea, when he was gone. "I can always talk better there."