"Oh, nonsense about Lucilla," said Mr Centum. "I can tell you Ashburton is not at all a contemptible adversary. He is going to work in the cunningest way—not a woman's sort of thing, and he's not a ladies' man like you," the banker added, with a laugh.
"But I am afraid you can't go in for that sort of thing as you used to do, Cavendish. You should marry, and settle, and become a steady member of society, now you've grown so stout." This was the kind of way in which he was addressed even by his own supporter, who uttered another great laugh as he went off upon his busy way. It was a sort of thing Mr Cavendish was not used to, and he felt it accordingly. To be sure he knew that he was ten years older, and that there were several things which he could not do with the same facility as in his youth. But he had saved up Carlingford in his imagination as a spot in which he would always be young, and where nobody should find out the difference; and instead of that, it was precisely in Carlingford that he was fated to hear how changed he was, with a frankness which only old friends would have been justified in using. As for Lucilla Marjoribanks, she was rather better looking than otherwise, and absolutely had not gone off. It did not occur to Mr Cavendish that this might be because Lucilla at present was not still so old as he had been ten years ago, in the period which he now considered his youth. He was rather disposed, on the contrary, to take a moral view, and to consider that it was her feminine incapacity for going too far, which had kept years and amusements from having their due effect upon Miss Marjoribanks. And, poor fellow, he had gone too far. He had not been as careful in his life as he might have been had he stayed at Carlingford; and now he was paying the penalty. Such was the edifying state of mind which he had come to when he reached the top of Grove Street. And there a waft of soft recollections came across his mind. In the absence of all sympathy he could not help turning back to the thought of the enchantress of old who used to sing to him, and listen to him, and storm at him. Probably he would have ended by strolling along the familiar street, and canvassing for Mr Lake's vote, which would have done him no good in Carlingford, but just then Dr Marjoribanks stopped in his brougham. The Doctor was looking very strange that morning, though nobody had particularly remarked it—perhaps because he smoothed his countenance when he was out of the brougham, which was his refuge when he had anything to think about. But he stopped suddenly to speak to Mr Cavendish, and perhaps he had not time to perform that ceremony. He looked dark and cloudy, and constrained, and as if he forced himself to speak; which, to be sure, under the circumstances, was not so very strange.
"I am very glad to see you," the Doctor said, "though you were a day too late, you know. Why didn't you give us warning before we all went and committed ourselves? If we had known that you were coming——"
"Ah, that's what old Brown said," said Mr Cavendish, with a slight shrug of his shoulders; which was imprudent, for the Major was not so old as the Doctor, and besides was a much less important man in Grange Lane.
"So you have been to see old Brown," said Dr Marjoribanks, in his dry way. "He always was a great admirer of yours. I can't wish you luck, you know, for if you win we lose——"
"Oh, I don't want you to wish me luck. I don't suppose there can be much comparison between my chance and that of a new man whom nobody ever heard of in my time," said the candidate for Carlingford. "I thought you Scotchmen, Doctor, always liked to be on the winning side."
"We've a way of making our side the winning side," said Dr Marjoribanks grimly, for he was touchy where his nationality was concerned. "Health all right, I hope?" he added, looking at Mr Cavendish with that critical medical glance which shows that a verbal response is quite unnecessary. This time there was in the look a certain insinuation of doubt on the subject, which was not pleasant. "You are getting stout, I see," Dr Marjoribanks added—not laughing, but as if that too was poor Mr Cavendish's fault.
"Yes, I'm very well," he answered curtly; but the truth was that he did not feel sure that he was quite well after he had seen the critical look in Dr Marjoribanks's eye.
"You young men always go too fast," said the Doctor, with a strange little smile; but the term at least was consolatory; and after that Doctor Marjoribanks quite changed his tone. "Have you heard Woodburn talking of that great crash in town?" he said—"that India house, you know—I suppose it's quite true?"
"Quite true," said Mr Cavendish, promptly, and somehow he felt a pleasure in saying it. "I got all the particulars to-day in one of my letters—and lots of private people involved, which is always the way with these old houses," he added, with a mixture of curiosity and malice—"widows, and all sorts of superannuated folks."