Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/406

 not only of his wisdom, but of his patriotism in that reticence. For certainly he thus managed to exercise a very considerable influence: his advice was more sought, his suggestions more heeded, and his power in reconciling certain rival jealousies was perhaps greater than would have been the case if he had actually entered either House of Parliament, and thrown himself exclusively into the ranks, not only of one party, but of one section of a party. Nevertheless, such suspense could not last very long; he must decide at all events before the next session. Once he was seen in the arena of his old triumphs, on the benches devoted to strangers distinguished by the Speaker's order. There, recognized by the older members, eagerly gazed at by the younger, Guy Darrell listened calmly, throughout a long field-night, to voices that must have roused from forgotten graves kindling and glorious memories; voices of those veterans now—by whose side he had once struggled for some cause which he had then, in the necessary exaggeration of all honest enthusiasm, identified with a nation's life-blood. Voices, too of the old antagonists over whose routed arguments he had marched triumphant amidst applauses that the next day rang again through England from side to side. Hark! the very man with whom, in the old battle-days, he had been the most habitually pitted, is speaking now! His tones are embarrassed, his argument confused. Does he know who listens yonder? Old members think so,—smile; whisper each other, and glance significantly where Darrell sits.

Sits, as became him, tranquil, respectful, intent, seemingly, perhaps really, unconscious of the sensation he excites. What an eye for an orator! how like the eye in a portrait; it seems to fix on each other eye that seeks it,—steady, fascinating. Yon distant members, behind the Speaker's chair, at the far distance, feel the light of that eye travel towards them. How lofty and massive, among all those rows of human heads, seems that forehead, bending slightly down, with the dark strong line of the weighty eyebrow! But what is passing within that secret mind? Is there mournfulness in the retrospect? Is there eagerness to renew the strife? Is that interest in the hour's debate feigned or real? Impossible for him who gazed upon that face to say. And that eye would have seemed to the gazer to read himself through and through to the heart's core, long ere the gazer could hazard a single guess as to the thoughts beneath that marble forehead,—as to the emotions within the heart over which, in old senatorial fashion, the arms were folded with so conventional an ease.