A Lost Leader | Page 8

Leslie, I am shockingly ignorant. You must live in London to be a politician, mustn't you?"
"It is necessary," he assented, "to spend some part of your time there, if you want to come into touch with the real thing."
"Then I am very interested in politics," she declared. "Please go on."
He shook his head.
"I would rather you talked to me about the roses. You should ask your uncle to tell you all about politics. He knows far more than I do."
"More than you! But you have been a Cabinet Minister!" she exclaimed.
"So was your uncle once," he answered. "So he could be again whenever he chose."
She looked at him incredulously.
"You don't really mean that, Sir Leslie?"
"Indeed I do!" he asserted. "There was never a man within my recollection or knowledge who in so short a time made for himself a position so brilliant as your uncle. There is no man to-day whose written word carries so much weight with the people."
She sighed a little doubtfully.
"Then if that is so," she said, "I cannot imagine why we live down here, hundreds of miles away from everywhere. Why did he give it up? Why is he not in Parliament now?"
"It is to ask him that question, Miss Mannering," Borrowdean said, "that I am here. No wonder it seems surprising to you. It is surprising to all of us."
She looked at him eagerly.
"You mean, then, that you--that his party want him to go back?" she asked.
"Assuredly!"
"You have told him this?"
"Of course! It was my mission!"
"Sir Leslie, you must tell me what he said."
Borrowdean sighed.
"My dear young lady," he said, "it is rather a painful subject with me just now. Yet since you insist, I will tell you. Something has come over your uncle which I do not understand. His party--no, it is his country that needs him. He prefers to stay here, and watch his roses blossom."
"It is wicked of him!" she declared, energetically.
"It is inexplicable," he agreed. "Yet I have used every argument which can well be urged."
"Oh, you must think of others," she begged. "If you knew how weary one gets of this place--a man, too, like my uncle! How can he be content? The monotony here is enough to drive even a dull person like myself mad. To choose such a life, actually to choose it, is insanity!"
Borrowdean raised his head. He had heard the click of the garden gate.
"They are coming," he said. "I wish you would talk to your uncle like this."
"I only wish," she answered, passionately, "that I could make him feel as I do."
They entered the garden, Mannering, bareheaded, following his guest. Borrowdean watched them closely as they approached. The woman's expression was purely negative. There was nothing to be learned from the languid smile with which she recognized their presence. Upon Mannering, however, the cloud seemed already to have fallen. His eyebrows were set in a frown. He had the appearance of a man in some manner perplexed. He carried two telegrams, which he handed over to Borrowdean.
"A boy on a bicycle," he remarked, "is waiting for answers. Two telegrams at once is a thing wholly unheard of here, Borrowdean. You really ought not to have disturbed our postal service to such an extent."
Borrowdean smiled as he tore them open.
"I think," he said, "that I can guess their contents. Yes, I thought so. Can you send me to the station, Mannering?"
"I can--if it is necessary," Mannering answered. "Must you really go?"
Borrowdean nodded.
"I must be in the House to-night," he said, a little wearily. "Rochester is going for them again."
"You didn't take a pair?" Mannering asked.
"It isn't altogether that," Borrowdean answered, "though Heaven knows we can't spare a single vote just now. Rochester wants me to speak. We are a used-up lot, and no mistake. We want new blood, Mannering!"
"I trust that the next election," Mannering said, "may supply you with it. Will you walk round to the stables with me? I must order a cart for you."
"I shall be glad to," Borrowdean answered.
They walked side by side through the chestnut grove. Borrowdean laid his hand upon his friend's arm.
"Mannering," he said, slowly, "am I to take it that you have spoken your last word? I am to write my mission down a failure?"
"A failure without doubt, so far as regards its immediate object," Mannering assented. "For the rest, it has been very pleasant to see you again, and I only wish that you could spare us a few more days."
Borrowdean shook his head.
"We are better apart just now, Mannering," he said, "for I tell you frankly that I do not understand your present attitude towards life--your entire absence of all sense of moral responsibility. Are you indeed willing to be written down in history as a philanderer in great things, to loiter in your flower gardens,