Part 53 (1/2)

”What remains in my mind,” he said with hesitation, ”is not the excitement, nor the applause, is not the difficulty of making speeches about subjects with which one is not half acquainted, nor the fear of being asked questions for which one has no reply ready, but something quite different. It is the memory of little bare raftered school-rooms, hot with gas-light, crowded with white faces, faces so hopeful, so--intolerably hopeful--the faces of people who look confidently to candidates and Parliaments for so much more than it seems to me Parliaments and candidates can ever do.”

”Ah!” said Rames curiously. ”You felt that too. I remember that I did.”

Burrell leaned forward.

”Did you too, though you shouted yourself hoa.r.s.e with the rest, feel a little ashamed?”

Rames reflected. ”No,” he said; ”never.” Then he added with a smile, ”but I think I should now.”

”I did,” said Burrell. ”There were times when I wanted to stop my speech in the middle and cry out, 'Don't look at me with such high hopes. It's no use! It's no use!' But I held my tongue. For there's always the little that governments can do. That's the consolation, isn't it?” Burrell was finding it easier to speak out his thoughts now. The false shame with which he had begun had quite left him. His words tumbled out hot from his soul. The strangely curious, almost envious, look with which Harry Rames, his tutor and leader, waited upon him encouraged and urged him on.

”The fight, the excitement, the victory--oh yes, they are worth having, even though one owes them to another, just as I owe them, Captain Rames, to you. But now, after the victory, there's still the little which can be done; and there's still the memory of the raftered school-rooms, the hot gas-light, and the rows of eager, hopeful, pallid faces to help one on to do it.”

He stopped and leaned back in his chair. The shame of a young man who has let his tongue wag before his elders and masters seized hold upon him.

”But why did you lead me on to talk this sort of blatter to you?” he asked in an aggrieved voice. ”All that I have just learnt you knew long since.”

Harry Rames shook his head.

”Your opposition to Devenish's land bill shows it,” Burrell insisted.

”Oh, we'll have a real policy of land reform, not an act of revenge.”

Harry Rames leaned across the corner of the table toward young Burrell. To the youth's eyes he looked at this moment extraordinarily haggard and old.

”I'll tell you, Burrell, why I asked my question. I wanted to recapture from you if I could something of a man's enthusiasm at his first political victory.”

Burrell looked at his leader with astonishment. Of the man of fire who had blazed through the const.i.tuency from corner to corner with clear ringing phrases and an inexhaustible good-humor there was now nothing left. He was burnt out. He sat with brooding eyes and a white face all fallen into despair. The tale of his years was suddenly written large upon him. Burrell had wit enough to understand that fatigue did not explain the change. A mask was withdrawn; he saw misery like a cancer.

Rames sat and betrayed himself like a man in his cups.

”You tell me you felt ashamed in the school-rooms. I never knew anything of such shame. To win, to win, to win! That was all I thought about. That was all the desire I felt. That was what I hoped you would help me to recapture to-night. But you haven't helped.”

Rames's eyes dwelt angrily upon his colleague.

”No. You have made me feel ashamed too.” Then his face relaxed and he added in a friendlier voice: ”I believe that I have helped you--really helped you. Oh, not to win a seat in the House of Commons. That's nothing to be so proud about. But to find your vocation.”

”Where you have found yours,” said Burrell firmly.

”Not a bit of it,” said Rames, and then he woke from his moodiness to a savage outburst of contempt. ”Oh, I am going on with it. Don't be alarmed, Burrell. I'll lead you. We'll put up a fight. We'll make the fur fly. Very possibly we'll pull the whole Government down with a run. But--” and drawing his chair nearer to the youth he changed his tone. ”I'll tell you the truth about the House of Commons. It's the place where the second-rate gets the finest show in the world. In no walk of life does second-rate intellect reap so high a reward or meet with such great esteem. But it won't lift you to the very top. Nor will first-rate intellect either. Remember that!”

”What will then?” asked Burrell in perplexity, and Harry Rames shrugged his shoulders.

”The little bit extra. Character, perseverance! I don't know.

Something anyway. It's the same everywhere now. There are too many clever people about. Faith in a cause, I think will do it. That's why the sentimentalists do so much harm in public affairs. They get their way, because they believe. They are not playing the political game.

Cleverness is twelve for a penny nowadays. To get up to the top you must have the little bit extra. Now in the sphere of politics I haven't got it. I don't say office is out of my reach. It isn't. I have been offered it. I have refused it. But I haven't got the little bit extra. Outside politics--in quite another sphere--I believe I have. But that's all done with. I was warned when I went into politics--warned by a shrewd, wise man. But I wouldn't listen, and so some day amongst the second-rate Right Honorables half a dozen lines will announce my death in the _Times_.”

Young Burrell had no great experience of the intenser emotions, and the bitterness with which Rames spoke appalled him. He saw a man in torture, and he listened to a cry of pain grown intolerable. Then in a second all was changed again. Rames was on his feet replacing the stoppers in the decanters, taking the shades from off the candles, performing the little conventional acts of a host in his dining-room.