The paper, indeed, was written by the smartest people conceivable, and had achieved the smartest combinations. "Liberty" was its catchword; but the employer must be absolute. To care or think about religion was absurd; but whoso threw a stone at the Established Church, let him die the death. Christianity must be steadily, even ferociously supported; in the policing of an unruly world it was indispensable. But the perennial butt of the paper was the fool who "went about doing good." The young men who lived in "settlements," for instance, and gave University Extension Lectures--the paper pursued all such with a hungry malice, only less biting than that wherewith day by day it attacked Lord Maxwell, the arch offender of all the philanthropic tribe. To help a man who had toiled his ten or twelve hours in the workshop or the mine to read Homer or Dante in the evening,--well! in the language of Hedda Gabler "people don't do these things,"--not people with any sense of the humorous or the seemly. Harding and his crew had required a good deal of help in their time towards the reading of those authors; that, however, was only their due, and in the order of the universe. The same universe had sent the miner below to dig coals for his betters, while Harding Watton went to college. But the last and worst demerit in the eyes of Harding and his set was that old primitive offence that Cain already found so hard to bear. Half the violence which the new paper had been lavishing on Maxwell--apart from passionate conviction of the Fontenoy type, which also spoke through it--sprang from this source. Maxwell, in spite of his obvious drawbacks, threatened to succeed, to be accepted, to take a large place in English political life. And his wife, too, reigned, and had her way without the help of clever young men who write. There was the sting. Harding at any rate found it intolerable. * * * * * Meanwhile, in spite of newspapers to right of it and newspapers to left of it, the political coach clattered on. The following day--Monday--was a day of early arrivals, packed benches, and much excitement in the House of Commons; for the division on the second reading was to be taken after the Home Secretary's reply on the debate. Dowson was expected to get up about ten o'clock, and it was thought that the division would be over by eleven. On this afternoon and evening Fontenoy was ubiquitous. At least so it seemed to Tressady. Whenever one put one's head into the Smoking-room or the Library, whenever one passed through the Lobby, or rushed on to the Terrace for ten minutes' fresh air, Fontenoy's great brow and rugged face were always to be seen, and always in fresh company.