Strone crumpled the note up in his hand, hesitated for a moment, and turned toward the exit. But he was not to escape so easily. His way was besieged and his hand shaken by many whose faces were strange to him. The leader of the House spoke a few courteous words, Lord Sydenham patted him on the back. He passed out into the cool night air with burning cheeks and eyes bright with the joy of life. Yet even then the man was true to himself, steadfast to his great aims. It was the triumph of his cause which delighted him, his personal laurels were to him a matter of secondary importance. He had made people feel, if only for a moment, the things which he felt. He had pierced, if only for a short time and for a little way, beneath the surface that marvelous cast-iron indifference with which nineteen-twentieths of the world regard the agony of the submerged twentieth. Good must come of it. Not only was his bill safe, but the way was paved for other and more drastic measures. The work of his life stretched out before him. It seemed to him then a fair prospect. He passed through the streets with a wonderful sense of light-heartedness. His own troubles were for the moment small things. He had found the panacea for all sorrow. At the Milan he handed his coat and hat to a liveried servant, and was ushered to a table brilliant with flowers and lights at the head of the room. Lady Malingcourt rose to receive him and held out both her hands. "Welcome, master of men," she exclaimed, with a gayety which seemed intended to hide the deep feeling which shone in her eyes and even shook a little her voice. "You have given us a new sensation. We are deeply and humbly grateful." The Duke of Massingham patted him good-naturedly upon the shoulder. "I can congratulate you with a whole heart," he said, "for you have spared me. Your cause will not be the loser, Mr. Strone. If it costs me a year's income, I will mend my ways." Strone had embarked upon a career in which reputations are swiftly made and lost. His own never wavered from the night of his first great speech. Chance made his little party a very important factor in the political history of the next few months. Chance also made his own share in the struggle a great and arduous one. For this little handful of men sent to represent the vast interests of the democracy were mostly of the type of Fagan and his class. Earnest enough and steeped with the justice of their cause, they were yet in many ways marvelously narrow-minded. Obstruction and clamor seemed to them their most natural and reasonable weapons.