"My! And were they all wasted?"
"No. My rival bought them up. Vide the newspapers—'the polling was unusually heavy towards the close.'"
"Really!" intervened Lady Chelmer. "Then at that rate you can unseat him for bribery."
"At that rate—or higher," he replied drily. "To unseat another is even more expensive than to seat oneself."
"Why, it seems all a question of money," said Miss Amber Roan, naively.
II
CHASSÉ
Lady Chelmer was glad when the season came to an end and the dancing mice had no longer to spin dizzyingly in their gilded cage. "The Prisoner of Pleasure" was Walter Bassett's phrase for her. Even now she was a convict on circuit. Some of the dungeons were in ancient castles, from which Bassett was barred, but all of which opened to Amber's golden keys, though only because Lady Chelmer knew how to turn them. He, however, penetrated the ducal doors through the letter-box.
The Hon. Tolshunt and Lord Woodham, in their apprehension of the common foe, began to find each other endurable. If it was politics that attracted her, Tolshunt felt he too could stoop to a career. As for the Marquis, he began to meditate resuming office. Both had freely hinted to her Ladyship that to give a millionaire bride to a man who hadn't a penny savoured of Socialism.