"No, they see too well, if you mean the voters. They've got their eye on the price of their vote."
"What!" she cried. "You can't buy votes in England!"
"Oh, can't you—"
"But I'm sure I read about it in the English histories—it was all abolished."
"A good many things were abolished by the Decalogue even earlier," he replied grimly. "Half an hour before the poll closed I could have bought a thousand votes at a shilling each."
"Well, that seems reasonable enough," said Lady Chelmer.
"It was beyond my pocket."
"What! Fifty pounds?" cried Amber, incredulously.
The blush that followed was hers, not his. "But what became of the thousand votes?" she asked hurriedly.
He laughed. "Half an hour before the poll closed they had gone down to sixpence apiece—like fish that wouldn't keep."