"They've got a party on in November. I was thinking of going then if I'm not bear-leading Summertown round the world. Why shouldn't we go together? Brother Crabtree may be there with any luck."
"Brother Crabtree is sure to be there," I answered, as I lighted him to his room and turned back to my own.
IV
Five days later my guests were scattered to the four winds. Bertrand stayed behind until it was time to move on to the Hunter-Oakleighs in Dublin, and O'Rane was waiting to accompany me to House of Steynes. A great quiet descended on Lake House, and I recalled Valentine Arden's maxim that the charm of a house party lies in the moment of its dispersal.
"You're not being quite so strenuous as usual, David," observed my uncle one morning after breakfast.
"I can't hurry the calendar, sir," Raney answered. "I must wait for November."
"All Souls?" I asked.
He nodded. "And then the Bar. And then the House."
The 1906 Parliament was distinguished by a little group of men who had cleared the board of honours at Oxford, blazed into fame at the Bar and entered the House as fashionable silks and rising politicians while still in the thirties. Their reputation preceded them from the time they were freshmen, and their career became the model for succeeding generations. I imagine that Simon, Hemmerde, and F. E. Smith were to the Oxford of their day what O'Rane was to the Oxford of mine—marked men with no conceivable limit to the heights they might attain.
"You think it's possible to reform the world from the House of Commons?" I asked.