Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/589

 be my London agent, having Mr. Teesdale, whom you know, as his lieutenant, on the spot."

"You speak of 'my party,' and 'my agent,' as though you had fully made up your mind to go in for the election. Is it so?"

"I had promised to do so," said Mr. Creswell, again with the old-fashioned bow, "before you did me the honour to accept the position which you so worthily fill; and I fear, even had you objected, that I should scarcely have been able to retract. But when I mentioned it to you, you said nothing to lead me to believe that you did object."

"Nor do I in the very smallest degree. On the contrary, I think it most advisable and most important. What are your chances of success?"

"Well, on the whole, good; though it struck me that our friends who have just gone were a little too sanguine, and—at least, so far as Mr. Croke was concerned—a little too much disposed to underrate the strength of the enemy."

"The enemy? Ah!—I forgot. Who is our opponent?" Mr. Creswell heard the change in the pronoun, and was delighted.

"A certain young Mr. Bokenham, son of an old friend and contemporary of mine, who was launched in life about the same time that I was, and seemed to progress step by step with me. I am the younger man by some years, I believe; but," continued the old gentleman, with an odd, half-sheepish look, "it seems curious to find myself running a tilt with Tommy Bokenham, who was not born when I was a grown man!"

"The position is one with which age has very little to do," said Marian, with a slight hardening of her voice. "No, if anything, I should imagine that a man of experience and knowledge of the world had a better chance than a young and necessarily unformed man, such as Mr. Bokenham. You say that your friends seemed confident?"

"A little too confident. Old Croke is a Tory to the backbone, and will not believe in the possibility of a Liberal being returned for the borough; and Mr. Gould seems to depend very much on the local reports which he has had from men of the Croke stamp, and which are all of the most roseate hue."

"Over-certainty is the almost infallible precursor of failure. And we must not fail in this matter. Don't you think you yourself had better look into it more closely than you have done?"

"My darling one, you give me an interest in the matter which previously it never possessed to me! I will turn my attention to it at once, go into the details as a matter of business, and take care that, if winning is possible, we shall win. No trouble or expense shall be spared about it, child, you may depend; though what has given you this sudden start I cannot imagine. I should have thought that the ambition of being a member's wife was one which had never entered your head."

"My head is always ready to serve as a receptacle for schemes for my husband's advancement, whether they be of my own, or his, or other people's prompting," said Marian, demurely. And the old gentleman bent over her again, and kissed her on the forehead.

What was this sudden interest in these election proceedings on Marian's part, and whence did it arise? Was it mere verbiage, pleasant talk to flatter her husband, showing feigned excitement about his prospects to hide the real carelessness and insouciance which she could not choose but feel? Was she tired of his perpetual presence in waiting upon her, and did she long to be rid of her patient slave, untiring both in eye and ear in attention to her wants, almost before they were expressed? There are many women who weary very speedily of suit and service perpetually paid them, who sicken of compliments and attentions, as the pastry-cooks' boys are said to do, after the unrestricted gratification of their tart-appetites, in the early days of their apprenticeship. Did she talk at random with the mere idea of making things pleasant to her husband, and with the knowledge that the mere fact of any expression of interest on her part in any action of his would be more than appreciated? Not one whit. Marian never talked at random, and knew her power sufficiently to be aware that there was no need for the expression of any forced feeling where Mr. Creswell was concerned. The fact was—and it was not the first time she had acknowledged it to herself, though she had never before seen her way clearly to effect any alteration—the fact was that she was bored out of her life. The golden apples of the Hesperides, gained after so much trouble, so much lulling of the dragon of conscience, had a smack of the Dead Sea fruit in them, after all! The money had been obtained, and the position had been