Half a Hero | Page 7

Ministry. Lady Eynesford,
abandoned by Church and State alike, surrendered, thanking heaven
that Daisy Medland's youth postponed another distasteful necessity.
"You'll have to face it in a few months' time," said Eleanor Scaife, who
was not always as comforting a companion as a lady in her position is
supposed to be.
"Oh, they'll be out in a month," answered Lady Eynesford confidently.
"The Bishop says they can't last. Do you know, Eleanor, Mr. Coxon is
the only Churchman among them?"
"Shocking!" said Eleanor, with no more suspicion of irony than her
reputation as an esprit fort demanded. It really startled her a little: the
social significance seemed considerable.
Mr. Medland's invitation to dinner caused him perhaps more
perturbation than had his invitation to power. A natural sensitiveness of
mind supplied in him the place of an experience of refined society or an
impulse of inherited pride. He cared nothing that his advent to office

alarmed and displeased many; but it gave him pain to be compelled to
dine at the table of a lady who, by notorious report, did not desire his
company.
"I don't want to go, and she doesn't want to have me," he protested to
his daughter; "yet she must have me and I must go. The great god Sham
again, Daisy."
"You'll meet him everywhere now," said Daisy, with a melancholy
shake of her young head.
"And rout him somewhere?"
"Oh yes, everywhere--except at Government House."
"I hate going."
"I believe mother would have liked it. Don't you think so, dear?"
"Perhaps. Should you?"
"I should be terribly afraid of Lady Eynesford."
"Just my feeling," said Medland, stroking his chin.
When he entered the drawing-room at Government House, and was
presented to his hostess by the Governor, on whose brow rested a little
pucker of anxiety, Lady Eynesford was talking to the Bishop and to Mr.
Puttock. Puttock had accepted the office of Minister of Trade and
Customs, but not without grumbling, for he had aspired to control the
finances of the colony as Treasurer, and considered that Medland
underrated his influence as a political leader. He was a short man,
rather stout, with large whiskers; he wore a blue ribbon in the
button-hole of his dress-coat. Lady Eynesford considered him
remarkably like a grocer, and the very quintessence of nonconformity;
but he at least was indisputably respectable, a devoted husband, and the
father of a large family, behind whose ranks he was in the habit of
walking to chapel twice every Sunday. Sometimes he preached when

he got there. Just to his right, talking briskly to Alicia Derosne, stood
Mr. Coxon, the Attorney-General, very smart in English-made clothes,
and discussing the doings of people at home whom he had known or
seen in the days when he was at Cambridge, and had the run of a rich
uncle's house in Park Lane. In the distance the Roman Catholic
Archbishop was talking to Eleanor Scaife, and suffering Sir John
Oakapple's jests with a polite faint smile. This mixture of the sects
ranked high among the trials of Lady Eynesford's position, and
contained precious opportunities for Miss Scaife's inquiring mind.
It seems true beyond question that moral estimation counts for more in
the likings of women than in those of men. Medland, in spite of the
utter insignificance, as he conceived, of the lady's judgment considered
as an intellectual process, was too much of a politician, and perhaps a
little too much of a man also, not to wish to conciliate the Governor's
wife; but his courteous deference, his clever talk, and his search for
points of sympathy broke ineffectually on the barriers of Lady
Eynesford's official politeness and personal reserve. She was cruel in
her clear indication of the footing upon which they met, and the
Governor's uneasy glance of appeal would produce nothing better than
a cold interest in the scenery of the Premier's constituency. Medland
was glad when Lady Eynesford turned to the Chief Justice and released
him; his relief was so great that it was hardly marred by finding Mrs.
Puttock on his other side. Yet Mrs. Puttock and he were not congenial
spirits.
"We are sending a deputation to you," said Mrs. Puttock, directly
Medland's change of position gave her an opportunity.
He emptied his glass of champagne, and asked,
"Which of your many 'We's,' Mrs. Puttock?"
"Why, the W.T.A.A."
"I won't affect ignorance--Women's--Total--Abstinence--Association."
"The enthusiasm this afternoon was enormous. Of course Mr. Puttock

could not be there; but I told them I felt sure that with the new Ministry
an era of real hope had dawned," and Mrs. Puttock looked inquiringly
at the Premier, who was in his turn looking at the foaming wine that
fell into his glass from Jackson's practised hand.
"A new era?" he answered. "Oh, well, you didn't get much