"What's the good of turning these fellows out--will anybody tell me?--if that's all Ferrier can do for us? Think I prefer 'em to that kind of mush! As for Barton, I've had to hold him down by the coat-tails!"
Barton allowed the slightest glint of a smile to show itself for an instant. The speaker--Roland Lankester--was one of his few weaknesses. But the frown returned. He strolled along with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground; his silence was the silence of one in whom the fire was hot.
"Most disappointing--all through!" said McEwart, with emphasis. "The facts wrongly chosen--the argument absurd. It'll take all the heart out of our fellows in the country."
Marsham looked up.
"Well, it isn't for want of pressure. Ferrier's life hasn't been worth living this last month."
The tone was ambiguous. It fitted either with defence or indictment.
The London member--Roland Lankester, who was a friend of Marion Vincent, and of Frobisher, represented an East End constituency, and lived there--looked at the speaker with a laugh. "That's perfectly true. What have we all been doing but 'gingering' Ferrier for the last six months? And here's the result! No earthly good in wearing one's self to fiddle-strings over this election! I shall go and keep pigs in Canada!"
The group strolled along the Terrace, leaving behind them an animated crowd, all busy with the same subject. In the middle of it they passed Ferrier himself--flushed--with the puffy eyes of a man who never gets more than a quarter allowance of sleep; his aspect, nevertheless, smiling and defiant, and a crowd of friends round him. The wind blew chill up the river, crisping the incoming tide; and the few ladies who were being entertained at tea drew their furs about them, shivering.
"He'll have to go to the Lords!--that's flat--if we win this election. If we come back, the new members will never stand him; and if we don't--well, I suppose, in that case, he does as well as anybody else."
The remarks were McEwart's. Lankester turned a sarcastic eye upon him.