Sir George Tressady, vol 2 | Page 4

he might write a hurried note to a middle-aged cousin of his mother's, asking her to go round to Warwick Square early in the afternoon, and making excuses for Letty, who was "very much engaged."
For Letty had met his request with a smiling disdain. Why, she was simply "crowded up" with engagements of all sorts and kinds!
"Mother is really unwell," said George, standing with his hands on his sides, looking down upon her. He was fuming with irritation and hurry, and had to put a force on himself to speak persuasively.
"My dear old boy!"--she rose on tiptoe and twisted his moustache for him--"don't we know all about your mother's ailments by this time? I suppose she wants to give me a scolding, or to hear about the Ardaghs, or to tell me all about the smart parties she has been to--or something of the sort. No, really, it's quite impossible--this afternoon. I know I must go and see her some time--of course I will."
She said this with the air of someone making a great concession. It was, indeed, her first formal condonement of the offence offered her just before the Castle Luton visit.
George attempted a little more argument and entreaty, but in vain. Letty was rather puzzled by his urgency, but quite obdurate. And as he ran down the stairs, he heard her laugh in the drawing-room mingled with Harding Watton's. No doubt they were making merry over the "discipline" which Letty found it necessary to apply to her mother-in-law.
In the House of Commons the afternoon was once more given up to the adjourned debate on the second reading of the Maxwell Bill. The House was full, and showing itself to advantage. On the whole, the animation and competence of the speeches reflected the general rise in combative energy and the wide kindling of social passions which the Bill had so far brought about, both in and out of Parliament. Those who figured as the defenders of industries harassed beyond bearing by the Socialist meddlers spoke with more fire, with more semblance, at any rate, of putting their hearts into it than any men of their kind had been able to attain since the "giant" days of the first Factory debates. Those, on the other hand, who were urging the House to a yet sterner vigilance in protecting the worker--even the grown man--from his own helplessness and need, who believed that law spells freedom, and that the experience of half a century was wholly on their side--these friends of a strong cause were also at their best, on their mettle. Owing to the widespread flow of a great reaction, the fight had become a representative contest between two liberties--a true battle of ideas.
Yet George, sitting below the Gangway beside his leader, his eyes staring at the ceiling, and his hands in his pockets, listened to it all in much languor and revolt. He himself had made his speech on the third day of the debate. It had cost him endless labour, only to seem to him in the end--by contrast with the vast majority of speeches made in the course of the debate, even those by men clearly inferior to himself in mind and training--to be a hollow and hypocritical performance. What did he really think and believe? What did he really desire? He vowed to himself once more, as he had vowed at Ferth, that his mind was a chaos, without convictions, either intellectual or moral; that he had begun what he was not able to finish; and that he was doomed to make a failure of his parliamentary career, as he was already making a failure of coal-owning and a failure--
He curbed something bitter and springing that haunted his most inmost mind. But his effort could not prevent his dwelling angrily for a minute on the thought of Letty laughing with Harding Watton--laughing because he had asked her a small kindness, and she had most unkindly refused it.
Yet she must help him with his poor mother. How softened were all his thoughts about that difficult and troublesome lady! As it happened, he had a good deal of desultory medical knowledge, for the problems and perils of the body had always attracted his pessimist sense. Yet it did not help him much at this juncture. At one moment he said to himself, "eighteen months--she will live eighteen months," and at another, "Battye was probably right; Barham took an unnecessarily gloomy view--she may quite well last as long as the rest of us."
* * * * *
Suddenly he was startled by a movement beside him.
"The honourable member has totally misunderstood me," cried Fontenoy, springing to his feet and looking eagerly towards the Speaker.
The member who was speaking on the Government side smiled, put on his hat, and sat down. Fontenoy