"I suppose they wouldn't," he said impassively. "However, I fancy it only precipitated the catastrophe. The Ministry was down and under, in any case. People were determined not to stand laws that inconvenienced them—as I was. I was merely an example, not a cause, of that disease...."
That was the nearest he ever got with Prideaux to discussion of his own action.
"Anyhow," said Prideaux sadly, "the Ministry is down and under now. Imagine Frankie Lyle, poor little beggar, trying to carry on, after all this!" (This gentleman had been nominated as Chester's successor.)
Chester smiled faintly. "Poor little Frankie.... I hear Monk wouldn't touch it, by the way. I don't blame him.... Lyle won't hold them for a week; he'll back out on every point."
There was regret in his tired, toneless voice, and bitterness, because the points on which Lyle would back out were all points which he had made. He could have held them for a week, and more; he might even—there would have been a fighting chance of it—have pulled the Ministry through altogether, had things been otherwise. But things were not otherwise, and this was not his show any more. He looked at Prideaux half resentfully as Prideaux rose to leave him. Prideaux had not wrecked his own career....
To Kitty, the first time he had met her after the events of Boxing Night, Prideaux had shown more of his mind. He had come to ask after Chester, and had found Kitty there. He had looked at her sharply and coolly, as if she had made a stupid mistake over her work in the office.
"So you didn't guess, all this time," she had said to him, coolly too, because she resented his look.
"Not," he had returned, "that things had gone as far as this. I knew you were intimate, of course. There was that time in Italy.... But—well, honestly, I thought better of both your brains."
She gave up her momentary resentment, and slipped again into remorse.
"We thought better of them too—till we did it.... Have I spoilt his life, Vernon? I suppose so."